PREPARATION FOR MISSIONARY SERVICE 
First Series on Types of Work 
No. 2 






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The PREPARATION of 
MISSIONARIES APPOINTED 
to EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 






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BOARD OF MISSIONARY PREPARATION 

25 Madison Avenue, New York 


THE BOARD OF 
MISSIONARY PREPARATION 

The Board of Missionary Preparation for North America 
was created in 1911 by the Foreign Missions Conference of 
North America to make a thorough study of the many 
problems involved in adequate preparation for foreign 
missionary service in all fields. It numbers forty members, 
including administrative and candidate secretaries of Foreign 
Boards, professors in theological seminaries and in special 
schools and departments for missionary training, and others 
whose study of the missionary enterprise or of educational 
methods especially qualifies them to advise. 

The Board has issued reports of its annual meetings and 
of conferences on special problems of preparation. It also 
issues several series of pamphlets, carefully revised at in- 
tervals, on the many phases of missionary preparation. 
These pamphlets are widely used by Boards for the infor- 
mation of their foreign missionary candidates. It is be- 
lieved that they meet adequately for the first time the needs 
of such candidates for suggestions which may help them to 
make the wisest use of their opportunities during their col- 
lege and professional study. Other series render the same 
sort of helpful guidance to the young missionary on the 
field during the first term of service and in anticipation of 
the first furlough. 

The Board holds from time to time conferences at which 
those who are responsible as administrators or as educators 
for the promotion of proper policies in missionary prepara- 
tion are brought together with missionaries of experience 
and with specialists to unite in their formulation. 

The Board also employs a Director who gives his entire 
time to correlating and extending its activities. Candidate 
secretaries of Foreign Mission Boards, teachers in schools 
which train missionary candidates, and others interested in 
special problems of missionary training are invited to cor- 
respond with him at the office of the Board of Missionary 
Preparation, 25 Madison Avenue,-New York City. 


THE PREPARATION of MISSIONARIES 
APPOINTED TO EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


PREPARED ORIGINALLY BY A COMMITTEE 
APPOINTED BY THE BOARD OF MISSION- 
ARY PREPARATION IN 1913; NOW REVISED 
AND REPUBLISHED, DECEMBER, 1920 



Board of Missionary Preparation 
25 Madison Avenue, New York 


BOARD OF MISSIONARY PREPARATION 


Reverend W. B. Anderson, D.D. 
Reverend James L. Barton, D.D. 
Professor Harlan P, Beach, D.D. 

Dean O. E. Brown, D.D. 

Professor Ernest DeWitt Burton, D.D. 
Miss Helen B. Calder 
Professor Edward W. Capen, Ph.D. 
Professor W. O. Carver, D.D. 
Reverend Wm. I. Chamberlain, Ph.D. 
Reverend George Drach, D.D. 
Reverend James Endicott, D.D. 
Professor Daniel J. Fleming, Ph.D. 
Reverend Arthur R. Gray, D.D. 

Miss Margaret E. Hodge 
President Henry C. King, D.D. 
Professor Kenneth S. Latourette 
Reverend James H. Lewis 
Professor Walter L. Lingle, D.D. 
Reverend R. P. Mackay, D.D. 

President Wilbi 


President W. Douglas Mackenzie, D.D. 
Professor Paul Monroe, Ph.D. 

John R. Mott, LL.D. 

Reverend Frank Mason North, D.D. 
Principal T. R. O’Meara, D.D. 
President C. T. Paul, Ph.D. 

Reverend Joseph C. Robbins, D.D. 
Professor Henry B. Robins, Ph.D. 
Professor T. H. P. Sailer, Ph.D. 

Miss Una M. Saunders 
Professor E. D. Soper, D.D. 

Robert E. Speer, D.D. 

Mrs. Herme R. Steele 
President J. Ross Stevenson, D.D. 
Fennell P. Turner 
J. G. Vaughan, M.D. 

Professor Addie Grace Wardle, Ph.D. 
Robert P. Wilder 
Reverend Stanley White, D.D. 
t W. White, Ph.D. 


PRESIDENT W. DOUGLAS MACKENZIE, D.D., Chairman 
FENNELL P. TURNER, Secretary 

REVEREND WM. I. CHAMBERLAIN, Ph.D., Vice-Chairman 


REVEREND FRANK K. SANDERS, Ph.D., Director 
25 Madison Avenue, New York 


PREFACE 


The following report was first prepared in 1913 by a com- 
mittee of which Dr. T. H. P. Sailer, Educational Secretary 
of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian 
Church in the U. S. A., and Associate in Education at 
Teachers College, Columbia University, was the chairman. 
This committee took its work with great seriousness. It 
formulated a brief statement expressing its own judgments 
and sent that with a set of specific questions to over six 
hundred persons, including North American missionaries en- 
gaged in various types of educational work. Board secretaries 
and others selected because of their experience. On the basis 
of the replies received a report was drafted and presented 
to the Board of Missionary Preparation at its third annual 
meeting in January, 1914. This report, together with an- 
other set of rather searching questions, was again submitted 
for criticism to over eight hundred missionaries. Their re- 
plies represented all the great mission areas and practically 
every type of educational experience. The report as now 
issued represents two subsequent revisions, based partly 
upon the suggestions received from the mission field during 
the years since 1915, and in part upon a very valuable con- 
ference on the training of educational missionaries held in 
New York City in December, 1916. No pains have been 
spared to make the report a reliable guide for the mission- 
ary candidate who looks forward to educational service. 
While it seems to set a very high standard of preparation, 
no well-informed administrator will question that the neces- 
sity for the enforcement of such standards is growing each 
year. 

iii 


PREFACE 


The Board of Missionary Preparation feels itself amply 
justified in the assertion that the pamphlet as now issued 
expresses the sober judgment of the ablest educational mis- 
sionaries regarding the preparation of the would-be educa- 
tional missionary for first-rate service. It will always, 
however, welcome suggestions which may be incorporated 
into future editions of the pamphlet, 

Frank K. Sanders, 

Director of the Board of Missionary Preparation. 

November, 1920. 


IV 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

I. Introductory 1 

II. What is an Educational Missionary? 4 

1. The educational missionary is first of all a missionary. . 4 

2. The educational missionary is a person who promotes the 

missionary enterprise through the agency of some form 
of educational institution 4 

III. The Significance of Missionary Education 5 

1. Foreign missions aim to develop a Qiristian social order. . 5 

2. Ordinary methods of church work will not accomplish 

this task 6 

3. The place of the school in the experience of the West. . 7 

4. Its strategic place in the missionary program 9 

5. Its definite and enlarging field 11 

6. Its indispensable contributions to missionary success... 13 

(a) An evangelistic contribution 13 

(b) A contribution to the intelligence and welfare of 

the church membership 13 

(c) A contribution to the leadership of the church.. 14 

(d) A contribution to the creation of other Christian 

institutions 15 

(e) A contribution to non-Christian society 16 

(f) A contribution to the educational systems of the 

non-Christian world 17 

(g) A contribution to an educational system for the 

national churches ^ 18 

IV. Difficulties in Missionary Educational Work 19 

1. The necessity of teaching in a foreign language 19 

2. Ignorance of the life from which the students come 20 

3. Equal ignorance of the life to which the students go 20 

4. An inadequate staff equipment 20 

5. An inadequate supply of textbooks 20 

6. The lack of trained native teachers 20 


V 


CONTENTS 


PACE 

7. The too frequent presence of traditions that do not repre- 

sent the best educational ideals 21 

8. The lack of expert supervision 21 

9. The responsibility for maintaining distinctively mission- 

ary ideals as well as those of secular education 21 

10. The increasing stress of government competition 21 

11. The harmonizing of western and eastern civilization. ... 22 

(a) The growth of a body of native teachers to under- 

take a large part of the classroom work 22 

(b) The growth in cooperation between missions in 

educational work, resulting in larger institutions 
and systems requiring correlation 23 

(c) The growth in a demand from students for an 

education that has a more direct bearing on their 
social and economic needs 23 

(d) An increasing opportunity to influence social sur- 

roundings 23 

V. The Qualifications of the Educational Missionary. . . 24 

1. The physical qualifications 25 

2. The social qualifications 25 

3. The intellectual qualifications 26 

(a) Openmindedness and originality 26 

(b) Ability to grow without the helps and stimulants 

of home surroundings 27 

(c) Linguistic ability 27 

(d) Clear thought and expression 27 

4. The professional qualifications 28 

5. The spiritual qualifications 29 

(a) A deep personal religious experience 29 

(b) A strong missionary spirit 29 

(c) A personal righteousness that commands respect. 29 

(d) The ability to teach the Bible effectively 30 

6. Actual experience 30 

7. Adaptability 30 

VI. The Training OF THE Educational Missionary 31 

1. Facts which influence the selection of courses of training. 31 

2. The relative importance of various forms of training. . . 32 

3. The best general preparation 34 


VI 


CONTENTS 


FACE 

4. Various lines of training 35 

(a) General training 35 

(b) Missionary training 38 

(1) The Bible in English 38 

(2) Religious education 39 

(3) The fundamentals of Christianity 39 

(4) The aims and methods of foreign missions. . 40 

(5) Comparative religion 40 

(6) Comparative sociology 41 

(c) Educational training 43 

VII. Important Courses in Education 48 

1. The most useful courses 49 

(a) Introduction to education 49 

(b) The principles of teaching in their practical appli- 

cation • 49 

(c) School administration 49 

(d) The philosophy of education 50 

(e) Educational sociology 50 

(f) Educational psychology 51 

(g) Comparative education 51 

(h) Physical and social education 52 

(i) Kindergarten methods 52 

(j) Treatment of defectives 52 

2. The place and method of study 52 

3. Educational training on the field 53 

A brief list of books of unusual value for the educational 

missionary 56 


vii 


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THE PREPARATION OF MISSIONARIES AP- 
POINTED TO EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


I. Introductory 

The aim of this pamphlet is to explain to the young men 
and women of the United States and Canada who are eligi- 
ble to become foreign missionaries the work of the educa- 
tional missionary and the preparation needed for it. It seeks 
to indicate the unprecedented need for this work all over the 
non-Christian world today, the great opportunities it offers, 
the personal qualifications it demands, and the sort of train- 
ing most apt to be useful. 

A word of explanation with regard to the special training 
of the educational missionary may be necessary. Although 
the majority of foreign missionary Boards still feel that their 
principal need is for evangelistic missionaries who must be 
of an all-around type, yet it is generally admitted that the 
adequate meeting of the existing conditions on the foreign 
field demands educational work of a verj^ high grade of 
efficiency. Those fitted for this must be missionaries with 
thorough educational training. Such training cannot be 
obtained in the brief period that usually elapses between 
missionary appointments and sailing for the field. It should 
begin some time in advance and may properly affect the 
electives of the later years of the college course, as sug- 
gested below. Naturally, the more specialized and narrowly 
technical this training is, the less assurance there will be that 
a given Board can place the candidate promptly in a position 
on the field where his training will find fullest scope. Yet 
broadly trained educational missionaries are always needed 
and usually find in time a work which draws out all their 
energies. 

This pamphlet does not attempt to discuss the requirements 


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PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


of the more specialized forms of educational training, nor 
the preparation for teaching different subjects, but treats 
rather the broad educational basis which missionaries should 
establish who expect to be connected with institutions of vari- 
ous grades, from the kindergarten to the university. As ex- 
plained below, this training will be more general than that 
demanded at home, first, because the staffs of missionary in- 
stitutions are usually not so highly specialized, and, second, 
because many missionaries are appointed to a mission rather 
than to a specific position in a school. The general advice 
of the pamphlet may need to be supplemented by those who 
have special knowledge of the candidate or of the conditions 
to be encountered on the field. It is therefore recommended 
that when a volunteer becomes convinced that educational 
work will be the most useful form of service for him, he 
should enter at once into correspondence with the candidate 
secretary of his Board, in order that he may receive such 
specific counsel as the case may warrant. 

For the sake of convenience the masculine pronoun will 
be generally used in referring to the candidate or young 
missionary. The advice offered, however, applies equally 
well to young women who are looking forward to educational 
missionary work. 

The educational standards given expression in this pam- 
phlet are high, but properly so. They represent an ideal to 
which many very successful educational missionaries have 
not attained in the past and which many may not meet in 
the future. Nothing has been recommended, however, which 
is not supported by the sanest and most representative pro- 
fessional judgment of educators on the mission field and at 
home. Educational standards have altered so rapidly all 
over the world in the last few years that only those who have 
received their training within a decade or so are entitled to 
final judgments. On the other hand, as has been said, the 
statements of the pamphlet are necessarily general rather 


2 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


than specific. All of its recommendations will be practicable 
for some candidates, while others will use them as a guide in 
making adjustments of their own. 

In estimating the value of advice from educational mis- 
sionaries, it must always be kept in mind, on the one hand, 
that it has the unique advantage of being based on experi- 
ence with conditions very unlike those generally met in this 
country. Many factors enter into missionary work on the 
field which cannot be fully appreciated without long contact, 
and some of these factors are very important. The word 
of an experienced and successful missionary should, there- 
fore, always be received with great respect, and a general 
consensus of opinion on the part of the missionary body must 
be regarded as a safe rule to follow. On the other hand, it is 
not surprising that many individual missionaries should un- 
derestimate the importance of thorough educational prepara- 
tion. Some of these missionaries have never had the oppor- 
tunity to experience the advantages to be derived from such 
training. Some have not been able to keep in touch with 
educational progress since they sailed. The work of some 
has been removed from the stimulus that comes through 
competition and contact with progressive influences. The 
heavy demands of routine have left little time for construct- 
ive thinking or for working out new ideas. In consequence, 
many missionaries are apt to lay stress on personal qualities, 
which are surely indispensable, but to ignore the greatly 
increased effectiveness which these same qualities would de- 
velop under the best training. Those who have received this 
training should surely be considered better judges of its value 
than those who have not. 

The candidate for educational service on the field is likely 
to be a student of some maturity. This pamphlet aims to 
discuss the problems of preparation in a thoroughgoing way 
so as to challenge the attention of the ablest students to the 
difficulties no less than the rewards of the task. It calls for 


3 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


arduous preparation and for specific details of training, but 
invites the right type of volunteer to a task of real signifi- 
cance and growing value. 

II. What is an Educational Missionary? 

1. The Educational Missionary is First of All a 
Missionary. 

He is not merely a teacher or professor employed by a 
foreign missionary organization for work in a school or col- 
lege on the field; before all this he is one who has devoted 
his life to the promotion of the missionary enterprise because 
he believes that this is the greatest work in the world and 
that God has called him to it. There are those who go out 
to teach in missionary institutions for short terms of service, 
but these are not properly educational missionaries unless 
the missionary spirit is their controlling motive. If they 
go mainly to see foreign lands, or to get practice in teaching, 
or because nothing else happens to turn up, they are helpers 
of the mission but not missionaries. It is important for sev- 
eral reasons that the educational missionary should have the 
right spirit and perspective. There are some characteristic 
difficulties in missionary educational work, as will be ex- 
plained later, which might dishearten those who put the 
practice of their profession in the first place; the needs of 
the work sometimes require a shifting of workers tempora- 
rily, so that the teacher may be asked to itinerate and preach 
for a time; most important of all, the highest opportunities 
of his position can be realized only by a man who seeks first 
the kingdom of God and regards education as a means to 
this end. 

2. The Educational Missionary is a Person Who pro- 
motes the Missionary Enterprise through the Agency of 
Some Form of Educational Institution. 

He chooses this agency because he believes its contribu- 


4 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


tion to missions is indispensable, and because he feels that 
he has some special fitness for the service it demands. He 
holds himself ready at all times to undertake any other form 
of work that may be manifestly more needed for the moment. 

The China National Conference of Missionaries and 
Chinese Christian Leaders, held in March, 1913, under the 
auspices of the Continuation Committee of the Edinburgh 
World Missionary Conference, declared on this subject: 

“We firmly believe that evangelistic and educational work are both 
included in our Great Commission, and that the success of evangelistic 
work largely depends on the efficiency of educational work.” 

III. The Significance of Missionary Education 

1. Foreign Missions aim to develop a Christian Social 
Order. 

The purpose of foreign missions is to establish in every 
non-Christian country Christian agencies that may ulti- 
mately be left to complete for themselves the evangeliza- 
tion of their people and the Christianizing of the social order. 
Foreign Missions seek to place every country in the world 
on what we call a home missionary basis. The argument 
for home missions in America is that we must build up in 
every quarter of our land an organized Christianity strong 
enough to bring the message of the gospel within the reach 
of all, and to leaven all society with the Christian spirit. 
When a region is sufficiently supplied with Christian agen- 
cies it ceases to be a home mission field and is left to work 
out its own salvation. The work of foreign missions is sim- 
ply the undertaking to provide for other countries what we 
acknowledge our own country needs, and what they are un- 
able to provide for themselves. When any country, at pres- 
ent non-Christian, has developed Christian institutions suffi- 
ciently strong to complete the Christianizing of the social 
order, it ceases to be a foreign mission field. 

There was a time when the main emphasis was laid on the 
evangelization of individuals. While this will always be 

5 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


fundamental and essential, it has been for a long time recog- 
nized that in itself evangelization does not automatically 
create Christian institutions. Some of the main problems 
of missionary work emerge only when groups of individ- 
uals have been evangelized. These must be organized into 
churches, supplied with leaders, and taught to govern, sup- 
port, and propagate themselves. Many missionaries con- 
sider what is involved in this to be their most important work. 

But there are other Christian institutions besides the 
church which are also of the greatest importance: the Chris- 
tian family, community, school, vocation, and state; and 
there seems to be no more reason for expecting these to 
result automatically from evangelization than for churches 
to do so. Without regenerated individuals such institutions 
would be impossible, but they nevertheless require great care 
for their full development. The furthering of these institu- 
tions at home is setting us some of the most difficult prob- 
lems with which we have to deal. While we may admit in 
theory that any man may have access to God in the midst of 
the most perverse social conditions, we lay the greatest stress 
on providing for the rising generation, and especially for our 
own children, surroundings in the home and community that 
will stimulate their best growth. 

2. Ordinary Methods of Church Work will not accom- 
plish this Task. 

It seems to be taken for granted by many earnest people 
that, if we can only organize in every country an autonomous 
national church, all these other Christian institutions will 
develop of themselves. It is undoubtedly true that such a 
church would be an indispensable aid in building up a Chris- 
tian social order. We look to the Church in every country 
as the power house of Christianity. But the Church some- 
times disappoints our expectations. In places it seems to be so 
absorbed in its own growth that it exerts no decisive influence 
on surrounding life. Especially today, when social, political 


6 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


and economic problems are becoming so complex and baffling, 
the Church is realizing the need of devising new methods 
and of welcoming new agencies — Christian associations, 
settlements, clubs, church schools, cooperative societies, sur- 
veys, etc., to assist in establishing the kingdom of God on 
earth. Some persons would not hesitate to say that at pres- 
ent the Church is not achieving this task and that a recon- 
struction of our Christian forces is necessary. If this can 
be said of the Church in this favored land, with its large 
membership, great wealth and rich heritage, what must we 
think of the Oriental Church, struggling in most cases to . 
maintain its bare existence, and too often only a feeble imita- 
tion of an ecclesiastical model in the West? Have we any 
right to expect that it is fitted to transform the tremendous 
mass and inertia of non-Christian society merely because it 
has attained self-support, self-government, and a measure 
of self-propagation? It seems clear that we should seek to 
supply it with every possible aid, educational and social, in 
carrying out its work. 

3. The Place of the School in the Experience of the West. 

When the Orient looks to the West for suggestion along 
the line of education, it discovers that one of the most strik- 
ing features of recent social development is the increasing 
burden that is being borne by the school. The sudden 
growth in complexity of modern civilization has had the ef- 
fect, temporarily at least, of rendering the family and com- 
munity surroundings relatively less effective as educational 
agencies, and of shifting heavier responsibilities on the 
school. The work of the school in this country is in a tran- 
sitional stage and has never been in such need of deep think- 
ing and expert supervision. 

The school is taking over in many places some of the func- 
tions of the family. Time was when it might be generally 
taken for granted that children would come to school with 
their physical needs looked after in their homes. Now we 

7 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


have school baths, medical inspection, lunches, tooth-brush 
drills, and other benefits normally provided by the family, 
but which, as a matter of fact, families are neglecting. 
Schools are teaching processes in manual and domestic work 
which homes no longer teach. They are teaching children 
to be intelligent buyers and consumers, and to make their 
homes more attractive. They are supplying playgrounds, 
entertainments, and social gatherings; they are accepting the 
responsibility of creating tastes for reading and other forms 
of leisure employment. They are doing much of the work 
of the normal home. 

Schools are reaching out into the community. They 
gather the parents into their buildings. They send out visit- 
ing nurses. They interpret community life and create a civic 
spirit. They have even become centers for art exhibitions, 
public discussions, and voting. 

Schools are becoming vocational agencies. In many trades 
the old apprenticeship system has largely disappeared. Pro- 
cesses have changed and become more complex and special- 
ized, so that they demand specific training. The problem is 
a difficult one, but the school has made a good beginning at 
it and is likely to do much more. Commerce and agriculture 
are receiving attention as well as manufacture. 

The Church is improving its educational methods, but 
hardly keeping up with its task. In view of the great num- 
ber it fails to reach with any effectiveness, the school must 
consider the question of moral and religious training. Not 
a great deal has been accomplished, but the attitude is sig- 
nificant. 

Finally, the school is seeking to serve the state by teaching 
the principles of government, good citizenship, patriotism, 
and in some cases, international brotherhood. If this last 
topic had been as strongly emphasized in the schools of the 
world as the spirit of narrow nationalism has been, we might 
have been spared the greatest disaster of modern times. 

8 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


4. Its Strategic Place in the Missionary Program. 

In pioneer days abroad missionaries faced a society that 
regarded its own traditions and customs with supersti- 
tious reverence and had not the slightest desire to change its 
ways, either secular or religious. Any one who departed 
from established precedents was ostracized or persecuted. 
Under the circumstances the first missionary work consisted 
in preaching and the distribution of literature as opportunity 
offered, following up persons who showed interest, and 
gathering into schools uncared-for children. The most that 
could be done was to detach a few individuals from the mass 
and to build them up in the faith. As the number of these 
grew, the schools naturally enrolled the children of converts 
and gave them at least the elements of education. Later be- 
gan an attempt to train Christian leaders. In this stage, 
therefore, the constituency of the schools was for the most 
part drawn from the families of believers, definitely sepa- 
rated from surrounding society by misunderstanding and 
prejudice, and largely ignorant of the rest of the world, and 
of the children of non-Christians of the lower social strata. 
This would seem to offer little opportunity for influencing 
society as a whole or for the application of western learning. 

But when in any part of the non-Christian world western 
civilization begins to be diffused, the case is different. It 
brings with it a great mass of new ideas, processes, and prod- 
ucts, which gradually become current. The methods of com- 
munication which it introduces, its social and political ideals, 
open the way for new relationships and create a demand for 
the new learning. Society now becomes willing to accept a 
certain amount of transformation. Schools of a modern 
type begin to grow. Their aim is to take over the material 
and intellectual inheritance of the West as rapidly as pos- 
sible. Missionary schools are sought by all classes of society 
because the demand for learning is greater than the means 


9 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


of supply. By raising their standards they can attract stu- 
dents of the finest type. 

With this change of intellectual attitude, there frequently 
comes such an increased hospitality towards western ideals 
that an opportunity for the first time arises for influencing 
social institutions as well as isolated individuals. The mis- 
sionary school would therefore miss its most distinctive con- 
tribution to the missionary enterprise, if it permitted its stu- 
dents to go out from it with a personal Christian faith, but 
with neither the insight nor the ideals necessary for eflfective 
participation in Christianizing the social order. It should 
study carefully the problems of family, community, voca- 
tional, state and national life, and should provide training 
to help in solving them in a Christian spirit. The Church 
can point out these social needs and arouse interest in them, 
but only the school can supply systematic training for deal- 
ing with them. 

This influence of the school upon the other social institu- 
tions is the more necessary for two reasons. On the one 
hand, these institutions in the non-Christian world are ill 
adapted to take their place in modern progress. What virtues 
they have presuppose a society that is stationary. The patri- 
archal family, the custom-bound community, the primitive 
industrial methods, the formal and superstitious religion, 
the despotic state, still existing or only beginning to be out- 
grown, have little or nothing to contribute to the rising gen- 
eration in fitting it for its place in the new order of things, 
because they have never had the ideas upon which this order 
is based. They are likely either to hinder or disintegrate. 
On the other hand, most of the institutions of the western 
world cannot be immediately taken over. They are the prod- 
uct of long growth, social, economic and political. For their 
sound development they will need to be built up in the non- 
Christian world by a similar process. The school, however, 
is not only more easily transferable, but it is at present exert- 


10 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


ing in the West the strongest influence on the other institu- 
tions. It has become the main agency for social progress 
and the molding of national life, and this in a comparatively 
recent period. It is impossible that the non-Christian world 
should overlook the importance of the school as a foundation 
of national prosperity. The brilliant success of Japan in 
the East and the example of the progressive nations of the 
West have emphatically called attention to this. 

Therefore the missionary enterprise, in its undertaking 
not only to reach individuals but to penetrate the social life 
of the non-Christian world, must make large use of the 
school. Moreover, this school must be of the newer social- 
ized type. This kind of school is being developed in response 
to the social needs of the West. It is still more urgently de- 
manded by the gradually transforming society of the non- 
Christian world. The contributions made in the past by 
missionary education, great as they are, offer no adequate 
indication of what missionary schools may accomplish in the 
future, if they are equipped to bear directly on social prob- 
lems. There is no other agency that can aid so fundamen- 
tally in the ultimate reconstruction of the social order as the 
school that sets itself to this task. There is no other agency 
on the mission field that can contribute so powerfully to this 
result. We need, therefore, not only more schools to meet 
enlarging opportunities, not only a better grade of schools 
to meet the competition of rising standards, but a school shot 
through with the social spirit of the kingdom of God. 

5. Its Definite and Enlarging Field. 

Christian Education has already rendered a large service 
to the missionary enterprise. In some cases it has afforded 
the most effective mode of approach and the strongest evan- 
gelizing agency. It has dispelled superstition by turning on 
it the light of science. It has leavened non-Christian society 
with Christian ideals ; it has prepared the way for the evan- 


11 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


gelist where it has not done his work for him ; it has trained 
the strongest native Christian leaders. It is bound to be of 
even greater importance. 

This goes far to meet the objection which is sometimes 
raised to missionary education, to the effect that the Chris- 
tian church on the foreign field should depend on state edu- 
cation, just as does the church in America. Outside of the 
Roman Catholic and Lutheran Churches, parochial schools 
have practically disappeared in the United States, and de- 
nominational colleges are less numerous than formerly. Let 
the Christian community on the foreign field, we are told, 
by all means have an up-to-date education, but let it not 
burden the Foreign Missionary Boards or the native church 
with the expense which this involves. Since the governments 
in non-Christian countries are building up educational sys- 
tems, why not take advantage of them, merely supplementing 
with theological seminaries and Bible training schools? 

In reply to this it may be admitted that the bulk of educa- 
tion for the people of the non-Christian world will ultimately 
be supplied by their respective governments. The attitude 
of the missionary towards the increase of educational facili- 
ties should always be cordial. Under certain circumstances 
it may be desirable or necessary to make use of these govern- 
ment schools to a greater or lesser extent. The day may 
come when many forms of missionary education will be 
forced out by competition that it is unable to resist, or when 
conditions may have so far improved that it will be willing 
to go. If the mission school proposes only to duplicate the 
work of the government, the case for its maintenance is much 
less strong. But for the present we hold that it has some 
absolutely indispensable contributions to make to the devel- 
opment of the native church and other Christian institutions 
on the foreign field, as outlined below, and that in most coun- 
tries missionary policy indicates that it is an agency of the 
utmost importance in the present crisis. Even on the home 


12 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


field it is a great advantage to have schools where Christi- 
anity is able to express itself more fully than in those con- 
trolled by the state, and on the foreign field the advantage is 
incomparably greater. 

As a matter of fact, the India National Conference, held 
in December, 1912, speaking for a country where the Brit- 
ish government has fostered education for many years and 
has recently undertaken notable improvements, says : 

“It is the deliberate conviction of this Conference that the need for 
missionary schools and colleges as a Christian agency has never been 
greater than now.” 

6. Its Indispensable Contributions to Missionary Success. 

The various and indispensable contributions of missionary 
education are deserving of a definite consideration : 

(a) An Evangelistic Contribution. — The missionary 
school offers some especially favorable opportunities for 
leading non-Christians to accept Christ. These opportuni- 
ties vary widely, but in many cases are very great. In some 
countries not only are there numbers of non-Christians in 
Christian schools, but nowhere else is it so practicable to re- 
move prejudice, to present Christianity in an attractive way, 
and to lead to a decision by personal work. The Christian 
school often attracts types of students who would not ordi- 
narily be influenced by the work of the evangelistic mission- 
ary. It has the advantage of continuous contact with selected 
groups at the most impressionable periods of their lives. 
Many of the notable religious awakenings on the foreign 
fields have been in schools. Outside of the school, many 
homes of parents have been opened to missionaries for 
evangelistic work, and in the higher institutions the students 
themselves have presented Christ effectively in surrounding 
districts. 

(b) A Contribution to the Intelligence and Welfare of 
the Church Membership . — Protestantism has always neces- 
sarily stood for education because it demands that everyone 


13 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


shall read his Bible for himself. It is general in non-Chris- 
tian lands to find the native Christians, and especially the 
women, far above the average in literacy. This is as it 
should be, though there is still great room for improvement. 
The native church, which includes a mere fraction of the 
population, must exert by its intelligence an influence in the 
community out of all proportion to its size. In the field of 
higher education Christianity cannot afford to seem indiffer- 
ent to the discovery and spread of truth, nor to have its 
followers compare unfavorably with non-Christian educated 
men. 

In this connection there is large scope for vocational train- 
ing — industrial, agricultural and domestic. The subject of 
industrial training with the earning of an independent live- 
lihood in view is one of peculiar difficulty on the foreign 
field, but should receive careful study. Agricultural training 
is much more hopeful, and may help very greatly in elevating 
the living conditions of the Christian community. The same 
is true of domestic science, which manifestly demands studi- 
ous adjustment to indigenous household arrangements. All 
these types of vocational training should undoubtedly have 
large contributions to make. 

(c) A Contribution to the Leadership of the Church . — 
The standards of education demanded by the native church 
are rising. In many places the people are becoming restless 
under native preachers with too meager training. It is 
sometimes impossible to hold converts who are well edu- 
cated, because there are no pastors who can command their 
intellectual respect. While the old style evangelist and the 
Bible woman still have large usefulness, Christian workers 
with broader training are increasingly needed. There should 
be Christian clergy and laity of marked ability to influence 
Christian thought and to interpret Christianity persuasively 
to their nation. The schools are not only indispensable for 
training such workers and leaders, but have unique oppor- 


14 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


tunities for securing volunteers for specifically Christian call- 
ings through their prolonged contact during the period when 
life decisions are made. 

Illustrations of success along these lines are very nu- 
merous. All over the world the leadership of the native 
Church owes its main effectiveness to missionary schools. 
Missions that have neglected educational work are obliged 
to depend on missions that have supported it for their real 
leaders. 

(d) A Contribution to the Creation of Other Christian 
Institutions . — As has been mentioned above, the important 
social institutions: the family, the community, the school, the 
vocation, and the state cannot be expected to achieve satisfac- 
tory development as an automatic result of the evangelization 
of individuals any more than can the Christian church. They 
will require systematic culture, and it is of the utmost impor- 
tance that they should receive this, in order that they may set 
standards for all society in this time of transition. That the 
social institutions should be Christian does not imply that 
they should be western in form. In many respects they will 
do well not to copy western models. Those who create them 
must both be filled with the Christian spirit and possessed 
with an understanding of social problems and methods. 
With the latter the school of the past has concerned itself 
very little, but the modern school is taking its responsibility 
for social welfare more seriously and is making contributions 
of real value even in the elementary grades. To do this work 
effectively missionary schools may need more or less recon- 
struction in curriculum and methods. They have at present 
few opportunities that are of greater importance. 

Schools can do much to interpret and promote Christian 
ideals of home life, they can train for social service in the 
community, they are essential in preparing teachers and in 
laying the foundations of an educational system which the 
native Church may ultimately take over, they are beginning 


15 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


to consider the question of vocational training, they make 
for good citizenship and for international understanding. 
No other single agency can hope to contribute so powerfully 
to the acclimatization of Christian social institutions in the 
non-Christian world as can the Christian school with the 
social viewpoint and an adequate equipment. 

(e) A Contribution to Non-Christian Society . — The 
school may so leaven with Christian ideals those who do not 
openly become Christians during their course that they may 
go away with an entirely different understanding of Chris- 
tianity and with a new attitude towards it. Many may 
become Christians later as a result of school influence. 
Many others who have acquired Christian ideals, an admi- 
ration for Christian character and a personal friendship for 
individuals, may have special opportunities for influencing 
non-Christian society through the nominal connection with it 
that they have preserved. In this connection it is the more 
important that non-Christian students should have a cleaT 
understanding, not only of the significance of Christianity 
for the individual, but also of its varied applications to social 
relationships. In China especially a very large proportion of 
positions of prominence in the Republic are being filled by 
graduates of the missionary colleges. Even when these men 
are not professing Christians they will exert on the govern- 
ment policy towards Christianity a very different influence 
from that of the old Confucian literati. Some missionaries 
consider that one of the greatest achievements of Christian 
education has been to infuse the non-Christian world with 
Christian ideas in preparation for a later transformation on 
a vast scale. In this connection the training of Christian 
teachers for government schools would be a most strategic 
move. 

The school has special opportunities for infusing Christian 
influences. An essential part of the living Christian message 
is the act of personal service. If the Good Samaritan had con- 


16 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 

fined himself to the spoken word in his dealings with the 
wounded man, his message would have been neither living 
nor Christian. As a matter of fact the gospel has been ad- 
vanced on the mission field from the first through acts of 
kindness, which demonstrate the Christian spirit of disinter- 
ested love and which not only commend but interpret the 
doctrine. A main contribution of the hospital as a mission- 
ary agency is that it affords such a great opportunity for this 
service. In like manner the institutional life of the Christian 
school, with its close and continuous contact, makes possible 
many forms of social helpfulness which are not so easily ren- 
dered under other circumstances. 

The school may also leaven society by direct contact. On 
the foreign field the missionary school should be foremost in 
its efforts to be a blessing to the whole community, and to 
cooperate with the home and state in individual, social and 
civic betterment. It should seek personal contact with the 
homes about it, and incite its students and graduates to social 
as well as to evangelistic service. Among many examples, 
the famine relief work of the University of Nanking and the 
social service promoted by Lahore Christian College may be 
mentioned. Every missionary school and college should be 
a center of social service. 

(f) A Contribution to the Educational Systems of the 
Non-Christian World . — The Christian school sets an exam- 
ple of the true place of Christianity in education, as the most 
valuable part of our inheritance from the past. Education 
professes to hand down to us the best and most useful ideas 
and ideals that have been acquired by the race. We cannot 
permit non-Christian nations to imagine that we consider 
Christianity so relatively unimportant that we make no place 
for it in our education. This is a time when the non-Christian 
world is substituting new ideas for old on a large scale. Its 
old religions have been in many cases so bound up with super- 
stition that they are being discredited and are losing their 

17 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 

hold. With them the old social restraints, such as they were, 
are passing away. If all the agencies of Christendom could 
be taken on to fill the gap — the Christian home, the Christian 
church, Christian philanthropy and public spirit — the case 
would not be so desperate ; but the only agency which is being 
generally adopted in a systematic way is the secular school, 
which is likely to become still more secular than it is in the 
West. Government education in India and Japan illustrate 
this fact. Not only is all Christian teaching excluded, which 
would naturally tend to keep from joining the staff men who 
desire to exert a positive Christian influence, but a large pro- 
portion of the professors are actively hostile to Christianity. 
At a religious census of 1910 at the Imperial University of 
Tokyo, 4600 students out of about 5000 returned themselves 
as either agnostics or atheists. Under these circumstances 
it is of the utmost importance that there should be attractive 
types of Christian education in full view and at close range, 
which illustrate the methods and value of moral and religious 
training. Christian schools endeavor to give the Bible the 
place it has occupied in the formation of the best Anglo- 
Saxon ideals, and to afford their students the most favorable 
opportunity for estimating the power of Christianity in 
individual lives and through them in the history of nations. 
They have also led public opinion in meeting special needs, 
such as those of girls, depressed classes, defectives, unfor- 
tunates, and others who are neglected. They have a rare 
chance powerfully to influence the national education by 
means of Christian teachers whom they prepare to enter 
government service. This large field has not yet been cul- 
tivated as it should be, but the positions already occupied 
in China by graduates of the leading Christian institutions 
are an indication of the possibilities of the situation. 

(g) A Contribution to an Educational System for the 
National Churches . — Just how extensive this system will need 
to be is a matter for discussion, which will be decided differ- 


18 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


ently in different fields. But everywhere the national 
churches will need schools under their own control for a long 
time to come. These schools must be maintained by educa- 
tional missionaries until they can be taken over by these 
churches and maintained with real efficiency. 

In order to make these indispensable contributions to the 
achievement of the aim of foreign missions, the Christian 
school will need to be thoroughly effective. It must attract 
the students it wishes to reach, sometimes in the face of 
sharp competition from other schools, must meet any govern- 
ment requirements that may exist, and must reflect credit on 
the intellectual ideals of the Christian Church. Standards 
will differ in different countries and under different circum- 
stances, but in general the aims of missionary education make 
far more strenuous demands than those of schools in this 
country, and these demands will probably become even more 
pressing in the future. 

IV. Difficulties in Missionary Educational Work 

There are certain general difficulties, not all encountered 
in every field, which make the work of the educational mis- 
sionary harder than that of the teacher at home. 

1. The Necessity of Teaching in a Foreign Language. 

To do this effectively one needs to know not only the 
equivalents of his own ideas in the native vernacular, but the 
thought life of the students themselves. Hence, even in 
cases where instruction may be given in English, a knowl- 
edge of the students’ mother tongue is necessary for the best 
work. When mastered, it is much more effective than Eng- 
lish for religious instruction and personal work. Both from 
the missionary and from the educational standpoint the im- 
portance of thorough acquaintance with the vernacular is 
great. 

IQ 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


2. Ignorance of the Life from Which the Students Come. 

In many cases there is an almost total absence of the home 
influences that constitute the greater part of American edu- 
cation. Ideas, abilities, and attitudes that are commonplace 
to the average American boy or girl may be altogether lack- 
ing. Points of contact are thus more difficult to find. 

3. Equal Ignorance of the Life to Which the Students Go. 

An ignorance of the needs of the family, community or 
nation which education must prepare the students to meet is 
a great handicap. These needs may be physical, intellectual, 
economic, social, or religious. Until they are known we can- 
not determine just what sort of education is most necessary. 
To estimate them properly may require long study. 

4. An Inadequate Staff Equipment. 

This is a condition which unfortunately exists in the 
majority of missionary schools as measured by American 
standards. It frequently means an over-pressure of routine 
work, and lack of time for the things that are most important 
from both the educational and the missionary standpoints. 

5. An Inadequate Supply of Textbooks. 

The number of reliable textbooks available is increasing 
and in a few places is fairly sufficient, but in most countries 
the textbook problem is a serious one. Missionaries have 
done much to meet the need and will have much yet to do. 
Especially in elementary education mere translations of 
books prepared for western schools will not serve the pur- 
pose. 

6. The Lack of Trained Native Teachers. 

The lack of well-trained instructors constitutes a difficulty, 
which is strongly emphasized both by conference reports and 

20 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


by correspondents. The salaries usually available do not 
attract the best material, and the missionaries on the ground 
have frequently been unable to train to real efficiency. 

7. The too frequent Presence of Traditions that do not 
represent the Best Educational Ideals. 

Many missionary schools are in danger, on account of 
their comparative isolation from modern educational devel- 
opments, of getting into ruts from which it is hard to release 
them. Many native teachers have inherited rote methods 
of instruction that are very inefficient. 

8. The Lack of Expert Supervision. 

In North America or Europe the teacher usually has su- 
perior officers with whom he may advise and who relieve 
him of the burden of the larger administrative and educa- 
tional problems. On the foreign field he must depend mainly 
on his own resources. A person with little experience may 
be called upon to perform some major surgical operation in 
education without assistance. 

9. The Responsibility for maintaining distinctively Mis- 
sionary Ideals as well as Those of Secular Education. 

The educational missionary must not only maintain a good 
school from the intellectual and moral standpoint, but must 
also make it exert a strong Christian influence and contribute 
to the growth of the native Christian Church. To realize 
this latter aim effectively will demand a large amount of time 
and energy. 

10. The increasing Stress of Government Competition. 

A few decades ago competition was unknown to most mis- 
sion schools. But the situation is changing. From all over 
the world comes the report of steadily rising standards of 


21 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


education, so that missionary schools must improve their 
efficiency in order to maintain their position. In some coun- 
tries, such as Japan and India, this competition has been felt 
for some time. In others, such as China, it is in its early 
stages, but in a few years may become acute. The govern- 
ment schools are supported by taxes, while the mission 
schools must depend upon Board treasuries or on special 
gifts. Governments can make regulations in favor of their 
own institutions. It is generally agreed that the need for a 
high quality of work in missionary education has never been 
so great. 

11. The Harmonizing of IV estern and Eastern Civilization. 

The greatest difficulty of all arises from the fact that mis- 
sionary education is introducing to such a great extent ele- 
ments that have been developed in an alien civilization. 
Whenever the requirements of one generation are very dif- 
ferent from those of that which preceded it education is a 
difficult matter. It is the more so when the difference consists 
not only in progress made in the internal development of a 
civilization, but in the sudden inrush of ideas from without, 
which cannot thoroughly be assimilated by society in a short 
period. In the former case education has merely to keep pace 
with social advance and receives valuable cooperation from 
other social institutions. In the latter case it must lead so- 
ciety, but is in constant danger of getting out of touch with it. 
There has probably never been such a delicate task of educa- 
tional grafting as is taking place today in the non-Christian 
world. Many of the difficulties mentioned above are either 
due altogether to this fact or are increased by it. 

Together with these difficulties there are some other ten- 
dencies in missionary education, not operating in the same 
degree in all countries, which contribute to create a demand 
for broader and deeper educational preparation. 

(a) The Growth of a Body of Native Teachers to un- 

22 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


dertake a large Part of the Classroom Work. — This throws 
on the missionary greater responsibility for supervision and 
constructive thinking, and demands corresponding types of 
training. 

(b) The Growth in Cooperation between Missions in 
Educational Work, residting in larger Institutions and 
Systems requiring Correlation. — This creates a demand for 
missionaries able to handle large educational problems. Co- 
operation often includes British and American missions. In 
this case an understanding of the strong and weak points of 
both British and American education is desirable so that an 
intelligent adjustment may be made. 

(c) The Growth in a Demand from Students for an Edu- 
cation that has a more direct Bearing on their Social and 
Economic Needs. — Missionary education may not be able to 
respond fully to this demand, but it cannot altogether ignore 
it. It will need workers who have made a careful study of 
the administration of the types of education which are under- 
taking to meet these demands in this country and Europe. 

(d) An increasing Opportunity to influence Social Sur- 
roundings. — Non-Christian society is in most places by no 
means so hostile as formerly to Christian influences, and is 
frequently willing to permit native Christians to have a full 
share in civic and national life. The missionary school must 
therefore provide a type of training which will help its gradu- 
ates to make the most of this opportunity. Missionaries with 
only the traditional academic ideas cannot deal adequately 
with this situation. Those are needed who can bring both 
the curriculum and the whole life of the school to bear on 
training for efficient social service. 

Here then is a task that ought to appeal strongly to 
American students who wish to help meet the urgent needs 
of the kingdom of God. The aims of missionary education 
are supremely important; the present opportunities, as the 
bulk of the non-Christian world eagerly invites instruction, 


23 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


are unprecedented; the difficulties afford scope for a high 
order of constructive ability. 

V. The Qualifications of the Educational 
Missionary 

What has been said above ought to rid any volunteer of 
the notion that he or she is too good to become an educational 
missionary. It may well discourage those who have had the 
notion that “any one is good enough to teach.” On the other 
hand, it must not be supposed that persons need have all the 
qualities that are desirable in order to be of use. The main 
value of the list given below will probably be to help volun- 
teers to guide their own training so as to develop the qualifi- 
cations mentioned. 

Another pamphlet of this series ^ indicates the qualifica- 
tions that should be demanded of all missionaries. These 
are briefly as follows: 

No one should be sent out as a missionary who has not 
been certified by a competent medical examiner to be of good 
health and of sound constitution, and who is not well 
grounded in the general rules of health. In addition to aca- 
demic preparation there should be a knowledge of Christi- 
anity which will enable one to present it effectively, some 
knowledge of the field, of the science of missions, the history 
of religions, the science of language, and the art of educa- 
tion. There should be a direct and personal faith in Jesus 
Christ, the sense of communion with God, the habit of 
prayer, a mind filled with the Scriptures. As essentials of 
Christian character there should be self-control, humility, 
and zeal; as qualities of temper, a love of God, faith and 
hope in Him, docility, gentleness, courtesy, sympathy, leader- 
ship. On this subject see further the report of Commission 

1 See the Second Annual Report of the Board of Missionary Preparation ; 
Report of the Committee on the Fundamental Qualifications of the Foreign 
Missionary. This report is issued in convenient leaflet form by the Student 
Volunteer Movement. 


24 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 

V of the World Missionary Conference of 1910, chapter 
VIII. 

Candidates are not responsible for determining whether 
they possess these qualities sufficiently to be sent to the field. 
The Boards undertake to decide this by the aid of state- 
ments which candidates make according to instructions, sup- 
plemented by estimates sent in by those who know them best. 
Naturally a candidate who is altogether satisfied with his or 
her own qualifications would seem to the Boards to lack the 
primary essential of humility. The only way for a volunteer 
to determine whether he will be acceptable for missionary 
service is to enter into correspondence with his Board. 

1. The Physical Qualifications. 

The physical qualifications of educational missionaries are 
in general the same as those of other missionary candidates. 
A pleasing voice is especially desirable in a teacher, and ath- 
letic ability is quite useful, especially skill in the organization 
of athletics and in coaching. 

2. The Social Qualifications. 

The social qualifications are important in three principal 
directions — relations with students, with colleagues, and with 
outsiders. In dealing with students there is need of an ab- 
sence of race prejudice, of an ability to sympathize with the 
viewpoint of students and to take an interest in their lives, of 
a capacity for friendship, ability to do personal work, ability 
to attract and influence others, leadership, firmness, a sense 
of fairness, willingness to learn, tact, gentleness, and refine- 
ment. As stated above, these are qualities which one who 
expects to be an educational missionary should cultivate. 

As to relations with colleagues, the requirement that is 
most in demand is willingness and ability to work with 
others. It involves humility, a willingness to yield in non- 
essentials, a sense of humor, companionableness, sympathy, 


25 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


tact, good manners. Those whose manners are unsympa- 
thetic and pugnacious, who lack refinement and tact, who are 
weak in showing and attracting friendship, will be severely 
handicapped for educational work on the foreign field. 

Much of this holds good as to relations with outsiders. It 
must be remembered that non-Christian peoples have gener- 
ally laid more stress than Americans have on formal man- 
ners. The more provincial the social training of mission- 
aries, the less likely they are to appreciate the fact just 
mentioned. The desire of the Eastern gentleman to pre- 
serve his dignity is something they cannot understand. Their 
heartiness and unconventionality may easily appear to cul- 
tivated Orientals and Europeans whom they meet to be 
only boisterousness and uncouthness. American volunteers 
should frankly recognize this danger and take pains to culti- 
vate manners which will be acceptable in refined society. 
The more limited the past social experience, the more neces- 
sary is it that contacts should be sought and improved with 
persons representing high types of courtesy. The missionary 
stands to many as a representative of the social life of Chris- 
tianity; his opportunities for social contact, especially in 
boarding schools, are very great. His social qualifications 
will greatly affect the value of his school work, the comfort 
of his fellow missionaries, and the relations of the national 
churches with the missionary body. 

3. Tke Intellectual Qualifications. 

The intellectual qualifications will differ for different posi- 
tions. For some time and in many places teachers of not 
more than average ability may render useful service, but the 
majority of missionary tasks call for ability above the aver- 
age. This is especially along four lines: 

(a) Openmindedness and Originality . — Conditions on 
the field are often very different from those at home. Edu- 
cational missionaries must be alert to note new factors in 


26 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


their problems, and be fertile in adapting their methods. The 
routine type of mind which applies familiar American 
methods to all sorts of conditions may do more harm than 
good. 

(b) Ability to grow without the Helps and Stimulants of 
Home Surroundings. — Teachers on the foreign field may be 
without the inspiration of associates, supervision, or com- 
petition. They may not see the new educational books or 
magazines, or be able to attend conferences on educational 
work. Their equipment may be meager and their time oc- 
cupied with distracting details. Under the circumstances, 
those who have never formed habits of self-cultivation and 
continuous intellectual growth are likely to become examples 
of arrested development. There is need of the ability to learn 
both from books and at first hand. If this ability is not ac- 
quired before sailing it probably never will be. 

(c) Linguistic Ability. — The ability really to master a 
foreign language and to pronounce it well demands a freedom 
from any physical impediment of speech, and an ear good 
in distinction of sounds. It is not easy to test this ability 
satisfactorily in advance, but pains should be taken to culti- 
vate whatever one may possess along this line. The oral 
mastery of at least one modern language is recommended by 
many missionaries, and also the study of phonetics.^ 

(d) Clear Thought and Expression. — It is obvious that 
those who have difficulty in conveying their meaning to their 
own fellow countrymen and in their own native tongue, will 
have a hard time with those of another race by means of a 
foreign language. Even when English is the medium of in- 
struction it must be used with special clearness. 

In view of the difficulties mentioned above, it is evident 
that there must be a greater number of educational mission- 
aries of unusual mental ability, if the perplexing problems of 
educational missions are to be solved. Training of the best 

^ See the report issued by the Board of Missionary Preparation, entitled 
“The Linguistic Preparation of the Missionary Candidate.” 

27 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 

kind is needed, but will never be a substitute for native intel- 
lectual strength. On the other hand, those with most intel- 
lectual strength will profit most by thorough training and be 
least harmed by it. Both are needed for those who are to be 
leaders on the field. 

4. The Professional Qualifications. 

These are ability in teaching, in administration and finance, 
and in relating education to the best life of the community. 
Teaching ability is a special gift that may be immensely im- 
proved by training, but which by no means necessarily fol- 
lows from a thorough mastery of the subject-matter. It is 
very important that those who become educational mission- 
aries should possess and cultivate this gift. Administrative 
problems will be far more pressing upon the average mis- 
sionary educator than upon the average teacher at home, and 
in some cases will be far more complicated. Limited finan- 
cial support will usually demand ingenuity in making a little 
go a great way. The relation of education to the life of the 
community is a matter which arouses the concern of teachers 
too little in every part of the world, but which is especially 
urgent on the foreign field. The educational missionary 
should have such a grasp of this subject that he will be 
prepared to do some constructive thinking in circumstances 
very unlike those at home. As to the professional spirit, 
there is something to be said on both sides. On the one hand, 
it is widely recognized that higher professional qualifications 
are needed for work on the foreign field. Some correspon- 
dents advise that no one should be sent into educational work 
who would not have been a teacher if remaining at home. 
There is a demand for some workers with the equivalent of 
a Ph.D. in education and with broad experience in addition. 
On the other hand, the spirit of the specialist may cause 
trouble on the foreign field. There is danger that the highly 
trained educational missionary may entertain a feeling of 
superiority to his colleagues who have not had his advan- 


28 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


tages; that he may regard himself, as one correspondent puts 
it, “as a sort of special chrysanthemum,” for particular uses ; 
and that consequently he may be hard to get along with and 
may not fit into the work of the mission. If his specialty has 
been a narrow one, he may find no position exactly to corre- 
spond, and he may be unable to do the work that is most 
needed. His tastes may become specialized so that he can 
perform only certain tasks with personal satisfaction and 
may be unwilling to take his share of general work. These 
are no theoretical evils, but matters of actual experience. 
There is a type of educational specialist which would avoid 
some of them, the type that studies education as a whole and 
traces its relationships with life outside of the school, which 
is more interested in education as a means than as an end. 
Even here there may be need for much spiritual humility. 
The solution of the difficulty of course is not to dispense with 
higher training in education, but to administer it to larger 
men, who will not be spoiled by degrees, and who are, first 
of all, missionaries. 

5. The Spiritual Qualifications. 

(a) A Deep Personal Religious Experience . — This is the 
basis of spiritual power and needs to be cultivated by daily 
spiritual refreshment. The missionary will lack many of 
the means of inspiration which are available to workers at 
home, and must understand how to tap for himself at first- 
hand the sources of supply. 

(b) A Strong Missionary Spirit . — This will involve 
some form of religious service in spite of the distractions of 
school life, and seeking in every way to make the school con- 
tribute directly and effectively to the great aims of the mis- 
sionary enterprise. 

(c) A Personal Righteousness that commands Respect. 
— The teacher must have a character which demonstrates to 
others the power of Christ in the individual life. 


29 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


(d) The Ability to teach the Bible effectively . — This 
ability is very important, as well as that to present the claims 
of Christianity in a constructive and attractive way. Such 
ability forms no part of the training of the American secular 
teacher. 

6. Actual Experience. 

All the above-mentioned qualifications are of the most in- 
tensely practical kind, but they need testing. Demonstrated 
ability along all lines is very important. Actual experience 
with physical conditions that are trying, experience in meet- 
ing, leading, managing, and winning people, in companion- 
ship and team work, in the amenities of social life, experi- 
ence in situations that demand intellectual initiative and an 
ability to grow without help from others, practical experi- 
ence as a teacher and administrator, in business management, 
and in making the school felt in the life of the community, 
experience in standing alone with God and in influencing 
surroundings that are spiritually dead, — these are the things, 
after all, that count for most. 

7. Adaptability. 

To make these things effective on the field there is de- 
manded the qualification that is most often mentioned bv 
missionaries, adaptability , a broad word which covers adjust- 
ments to new and strange conditions, to possible deficiencies 
in equipment and support, to the special needs of the field, to 
students of another race, to colleagues, to the missionary en- 
terprise as a whole. It implies not mere adjustment to cir- 
cumstances, but making the best of them, realizing their mis- 
sionary possibilities to the utmost. It demands versatility, 
initiative, thoroughness, patience and common sense. It is 
the crown of a strong character and not the defect of a weak 
one. It is the quality that Paul had in mind when he desired 
to “be all things to all men that he might by all means save 


30 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


some.” Inefficiency and efficiency which lacks adaptation are 
equally undesirable on the mission field. 

VI. The Training of the Educational Missionary 

1. Facts Which influence the Selection of Courses of 
T raining. 

Given the necessary qualifications and personal character, 
there are three kinds of training that must be considered — 
the general, the missionary, and the educational training. 
The nature and amount of each of these will depend in the 
first place on the ability and opportunities of the volunteer, 
and, in the second, on the field to which he goes and the type 
of work which he takes up. There may be volunteers who 
have not the ability or the means to complete a college course 
or to take special work afterwards, who may still be useful 
in certain schools on the mission field. On the other hand, 
not every position on the foreign field demands all the train- 
ing that some volunteers are able to take. Not all volunteers 
will profit equally from the same training. For some types 
of mind it will be much more worth while than for others. 
The age of the volunteer is also a factor. Those who are 
approaching thirty cannot spend much more time in training, 
if they are to go out at all, and even for some who are 
younger it may be wise not to prolong preparation. No volun- 
teer can afford the time necessary for all the training that 
might be useful. There is an advantage in reaching the field 
as soon after the age of twenty-five as possible. There is also 
an advantage in having as much training as possible. There 
is no rule for choosing between these advantages. In gen- 
eral, a full college course, a year in Bible training, and a year 
each in the theory and practice of education would be desir- 
able for every educational missionary. Further special study 
and experience would be thoroughly worth while for some. 
With these things in view it will be well for the volunteer to 
get into correspondence with the candidate secretary of his 


31 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


Board, assuming, however, that the mere fact that the Board 
may be willing to appoint and send him at once does not prove 
that he might not be more useful with further training. The 
tendency of the Board is to take candidates with a minimum 
of preparation that is necessary for a given place. In case 
the first Board approached has no demand for a candidate’s 
kind of training, it may be well to correspond with other 
Boards. 

It must also be kept in mind that it is not possible for a 
Board absolutely to guarantee in advance just the work 
which the candidate will be called upon to do on the field. 
In the first place, the candidate should not expect to be re- 
tained in a position in which he does not make good. Condi- 
tions on the foreign field are sometimes very unlike those at 
home, and a person who would succeed in a position of the 
same general character at home might fail there. Then 
some special emergency in a mission that is undermanned 
may make it advisable for him to be transferred to another 
place, or even assigned to some other line of work. But 
there is a generally increasing recognition of the fact that 
while there must be some all-round men who can be moved 
about freely, those who have had training for special posi- 
tions are more needed than ever before, and should be kept in 
them as long as possible. 

2. The Relative Importance of Various Forms of Training. 

A questionaire was sent to the field which asked for esti- 
mates of the relative importance of various forms of train- 
ing. It inquired as to which parts of the previous training 
of the correspondents had been found most valuable, which 
parts could have been most easily omitted, what training not 
taken was most regretted, and also asked for recommenda- 
tions as to the preparation of volunteers. In considering the 
replies to these questions, it must be kept in mind that for 
most persons, missionaries included, it is not easy to appraise 


32 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


the exact value of training that we have had, and still less of 
training that we have not had. The tendency is to congratu^ 
late ourselves over every experience from which we derive 
benefit. That another experience might have been more 
profitable is sometimes hard for us to believe. Moreover, 
many of us simply ignore types of opportunity which our 
present training has not fitted us to perceive. It seems prob- 
able that if an educational expert could make a careful study 
of the situation, he would advise for most educational mis- 
sionaries a more thorough training than they demand for 
themselves. 

With this in mind, it is interesting to find that the most 
characteristic response to the first question was that every- 
thing had been found of value. Of those who mentioned 
training of special value, a great majority gave first place to 
actual contact with life in teaching, business, or church work. 
This was true both of men and women. A liberal college 
education came next. The emphasis on practical, as opposed 
to merely academic training, however, was quite striking. 

As to things that might have been omitted, the majority 
declined to specify anything. The feeling was evident that 
the training received had erred by defect rather than by ex- 
cess. Among the subjects mentioned for omission, Hebrew 
took the first place, the classics, second, theological seminary 
work the third, and higher mathematics the fourth. It is 
fair to say that a very few specifically urged Hebrew, mainly 
on the ground of its value for translation work ; a few others 
spoke for Greek. These were in each case only a fraction 
of those who would have been willing to omit these branches. 
Among those recommending the omission of Hebrew was a 
professor in a theological seminary. Some, both men and 
women, who had had long terms of practical training, felt 
that less would have been sufficient. 

Of special training not taken and regretted, the subject 
most frequently mentioned was the theory and practice of 


33 


PREPAEIATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


education, with administration and teacher training specified 
by a number. Next came practical Bible study, followed by 
music. Other subjects mentioned were bookkeeping, com- 
parative religion, business training, medicine, sociology, and 
manual training. A great proportion of those engaged in 
college work felt the need of further preparation in the sub- 
ject they were teaching. This need was little in evidence 
among those in education of a lower grade. Of the women, 
about one-half mentioned Bible study, with training in edu- 
cation next, and music next. Bookkeeping, training in nurs- 
ing, phonetics, business training, and kindergarten training 
were each specified by a small group. It should be kept in 
mind that these statements do not necessarily imply that the 
subjects mentioned are most needed by educational mission- 
aries, but only that they are those the lack of which is apt to 
be most felt. On the other hand, the fact that less than half 
the women mentioned training in education, does not imply 
that it is not essential for every educational missionary, but 
only that probably less than half the women had not had it. 

3. The Best General Preparation. 

As to recommendations for preparation in general, almost 
all urged a college course, both for men and women. Over 
one-half mentioned a school of education, and others sug- 
gested that educational courses be taken in college. There 
is reason to believe that many of these correspondents are 
not acquainted with the facilities offered by the best schools 
of education at present, and that if they were they would 
recommend them more strongly. The testimony of mission- 
aries on furlough who have attended such schools confirms 
this supposition. A considerable fraction mentioned also 
Bible schools, postgraduate work, and practice teaching. A 
fuller statement as to the theological seminary is given below. 
By the women, teaching, schools of education, and systematic 
courses in Bible are most frequently mentioned. 


34 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


A question as to the best possible use of three years 
available for preparation after college graduation drew 
widely differing replies. Educational, theological, postgrad- 
uate work, and practice teaching were recommended in the 
order named. The low place given to practice teaching re- 
flects the opinion widely held in this country that all that is 
necessary for a high school or college teacher is a knowledge 
of subject-matter. It seems clear that in ordinary cases 
under such circumstances a full year should be given to 
theory in education, a full year to selected Bible and theo- 
logical studies; that for those who are to teach special sub- 
jects at least a year of postgraduate work is highly desirable ; 
and that in general, a year of practical teaching should be 
had. Many may find it possible to secure equivalents of one 
or more of these forms in other ways, but where time and 
means permit, the educational missionary should have them 
all. If the question had been differently put, it would prob- 
ably have drawn out greater emphasis on the value of prac- 
tical experience. 

4. Various Lines of Training. 

(a) General Training . — It is generally taken for granted 
today that a college course is desirable for educational mis- 
sionaries. The only possible exceptions would be : ( 1 ) those 
teaching specialized subjects, such as physical training, do- 
mestic science, etc., where practical experience is of relatively 
large importance; (2) those in boarding schools and elemen- 
tary work, especially in countries where competition is not yet 
severe; (3) those whose self-education furnishes the equiva- 
lent of a college course. Some Boards are undertaking to 
make the A.B. a minimum requirement for their educational 
missionaries. While it may be well to administer this rule 
with discretion, the reasons for a broad educational founda- 
tion are very strong. In the first place, as the number of 
native Christian workers increases and improves in quality, 


35 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


the more expensive missionary should be used only for types 
of work demanding special ability and training. Those who 
are sent should be well educated. In the second place, knowl- 
edge needed is not so easily borrowed on the field. Here 
persons can easily supplement defects in their education by 
consulting friends or books. In many mission stations such 
aids are relatively limited. Third, the centers of the foreign 
field present broad, cosmopolitan contacts. The missionary 
meets graduates of the best European and American uni- 
versities, besides whose attainments a scanty or narrowly 
specialized education appears to great disadvantage. Fourth, 
most missionary institutions are so understaffed that sudden 
vacancies may demand readjustments not usual at home. A 
missionary may be called upon at very short notice to teach 
subjects altogether out of his line. A good general educa- 
tion will be a great help under such circumstances. Finally, 
since Christian education must be brought broadly to bear on 
social, economic, political and religious life, the training of 
the missionary should furnish at least preparatory contacts 
along these different lines. 

It is obvious that there are many types of college courses 
which do not fulfill these requirements. The old-fashioned 
liberal education, now rarely found in operation, devoting 
over one-half of its time to Latin, Greek, and mathematics, 
and yet only in exceptional cases resulting in a mastery of 
anv of these branches, is too narrow from the cultural stand- 
point. The modern specialized curriculum, creating exclu- 
sive enthusiasms for Elizabethan English, pragmatic philos- 
ophy, or tariff reform, may be too narrow in another way. 
It is not easy, college regulations being what they are, to 
select a course which is at once sufficiently broad and suffi- 
ciently thorough. Candidates for educational work on the 
field should have a stronger motive than most students for 
diligent work, both inside and outside the curriculum. Con- 
centration on subjects to be taught on the field or on those 

36 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


most closely related to education, such as psychology, sociol- 
ogy, and ethics, may well begin not later than the third year 
of the college course, at which time courses on education 
may be elected, if any of good quality are available. These 
last are increasing in number in colleges and universities, 
but are not always very satisfactory in character. For those 
who expect to teach in higher institutions, broad post-gradu- 
ate work in the subject to be taught is very desirable, and 
some missionaries would recommend a Ph.D. for every mem- 
ber of the faculty of a missionary college. 

Other subjects that may well be elected are the English 
Bible, comparative religion, the science of language, modern 
history, sociology, economics, politics, philosophy, some phys- 
ical and biological science, English (in which it appears that 
many missionaries are notably deficient), modern languages, 
and anthropology^ These are all subjects with broad cul- 
tural values and will be rendered only more broad by the 
consideration of their relations to the changing civilization 
of the non-Christian world. Other subjects, not so generally 
on the elective list, but of value to missionaries, are physical 
training, hygiene, household economics, agriculture, business 
methods, bookkeeping, phonetics, music, and nursing. The 
quality of courses with the same name differ greatly in dif- 
ferent institutions. Some instructors make the most un- 
promising subjects well worth taking; others can deprive the 
most hopeful subjects of stimulus. Students should not 
select their work merely from an inspection of the college 
catalog, but should consult with more able students who have 
taken the courses in question. 

The best things to be obtained from any course are interest 
and ability to pursue the subject further without assistance, 
methods, and habits of work, ideas that have application to 
other important fields, and ability to apply them. Practical 
experience in Bible teaching or Sunday-school work will be 
valuable ; also experience in personal work and social service. 

37 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


Mission study classes will naturally be attended by candi- 
dates. 

What was said above as to the practical side of training 
must not be forgotten. Opportunities in college for devel- 
oping adaptability and efficiency in social, intellectual, and 
executive lines should be improved, but for many students a 
year or two of responsibility later on would be far more 
fruitful. 

(b) Missionary Training . — The most necessary subjects 
in missionary training are the Bible, religious education, the 
fundamentals of Christianity, aims and methods of foreign 
missions, comparative religion, comparative sociology, and 
the science of language. 

(1) The Bible in English . — A thorough knowledge of 
the English Bible is essential. This should be based on re- 
cent scholarship. One missionary writes, “Blind adherence 
to traditions will lose the respect of the Chinese.” Another 
says, “Those who do not keep up to date in their religious 
thought are apt to become stumbling-blocks.” These corre- 
spondents are not urging radical views, but only an acquaint- 
ance with modern Christian thought. As yet another puts it, 
missionaries should at least know enough of the modern 
interpretation of the Bible to be able to accept or reject it 
intelligently. 

The Bible in Hebrew and Greek is generally felt to be less 
important for an educational missionary, except of course 
those who are to teach in theological seminaries or Bible 
schools or to help in translating the scriptures. An ability to 
read the New Testament in the original will always be a help, 
but the study of Hebrew is not in general urged. Of all sub- 
jects that our correspondents would be willing to omit, it is 
most frequently mentioned. A smattering is hardly worth 
while, and the time required for even a fair mastery could 
be by the great majority of educational missionaries far more 
profitably devoted to other things. The contention is not 


38 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


that Hebrew is valueless, but that for educational work on 
the foreign field many subjects more commonly omitted 
would be more useful. A knowledge of the background of 
Bible history and of Biblical theology is much more 
necessary. 

(2) Religious Education . — The principles of religious 
education constitute a subject of great importance. Many re- 
quests come from missionaries for suggestions how to make 
their work more effective along this line. Missionary schools 
are both a field and a force for religious instruction of every 
grade. The missionary should be a student of religious 
psychology, and should understand what material will best 
promote normal development at each age. He must also be 
able to teach the Bible effectively. Many students on the field 
will get from their missionary teacher the only Bible in- 
struction they ever receive. Many will copy his methods in 
their own work. If he is systematic and efficient in dealing 
with secular subjects, and haphazard and feeble in his Bible 
classes, the natural inference will be that he considers the 
latter of little account. The best opportunities of all may 
come to him in personal work outside of any class, and he 
must know how to make the most of these. 

An ability to guide the religious activities of students, 
such as is gained in the student Association work and a 
knowledge of the most effective methods of Sunday-school 
administration, will also be of the greatest value. 

(3) The Fundamentals of Christianity . — These should 
comprise as a minimum the outlines of Christian doctrine 
stated in terms of modern thought. The educational mis- 
sionary should be prepared to present and to teach others to 
present the Christian message with effectiveness. A full 
course in systematic theology is not necessary, though some 
knowledge of the history of doctrine will be very useful, as 
some of the western developments of theological thought 
tend to repeat themselves on the foreign field. The broad 


39 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


essentials on which Christian churches unite are most im- 
portant. The main value of an acquaintance with denomi- 
national differences is that they may not unwittingly be 
made prominent. An acquaintance with union movements 
at home will help in promoting Christian union on the field. 

The study of the relation of Christianity to philosophical 
thought may be very useful in dealing with those troubled 
with doubts, but in general the statement of Christianity 
should appeal to decision and action rather than to specu- 
lation. 

(4) The Aims and Methods of Foreign Missions . — 
These should be clearly understood so that the educational 
work may make its maximum contribution to the whole 
cause. This is supremely important and yet is much neg- 
lected. In few lines is the ignorance of missionary candi- 
dates so surprising as in this of the large missionary aims 
and policies. Among missionaries themselves there is still 
more or less difference of opinion, due to differences of theo- 
logical viewpoint, temperament, or circumstance; among 
candidates the large aims have often never been even con- 
sidered. The subject should be studied in such documents 
as the Report of the Edinburgh World Missionary Confer- 
ence, especially volumes II and III ; the Findings of the Con- 
tinuation Committee Conferences in Asia ; and The Interna- 
tional Review of Missions. Education at home and abroad 
is only the means to an end, and it cannot hope to achieve its 
ends unless it understands them thoroughly. 

(5) Comparative Religion . — This is of great importance 
to the educational missionary because he seeks to substitute 
a Christian conception of life for a non-Christian conception. 
He must therefore know his points of contact. He will 
naturally concentrate on the history of the religious develop- 
ment of the field to which he expects to go. He cannot deal 
fairly and wisely with his students without an acquaintance 
with their religious background. Volume IV of the Edin- 


40 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


burgh Report will be found especially valuable in this 
connection, and also the series of pamphlets issued by the 
Board of Missionary Preparation on the Presentation of 
Christianity to various peoples. 

(6) Comparative Sociology . — This is useful because the 
social structure of many of the non-Christian nations is very 
different from our own. There is danger that the forces of 
modern civilization will destroy this far more rapidly than 
they can supply something adequate to take its place. There 
is a great opportunity for the Christian school to act as a 
constructive agency, helping to retain whatever of good in 
the old order can hope to fuse with the new, and holding up 
high ideals to combat the sordid ambitions of modern life. 

The study of the science of language and phonetics may 
save the missionary much time and greatly increase his effi- 
ciency. ^ 

Where shall these subjects he studied? In great universi- 
ties elective courses on some of these subjects may be avail- 
able even for the undergraduate. Something may also be 
done in voluntary classes for Bible and mission study. In 
general it would seem well worth while to take at least a 
year to prepare along these lines. In this, as in most other 
lines of preparation, a second year of study may more than 
double the profit gained from only one. 

Like colleges, theological seminaries differ much in the 
facilities they provide for missionary candidates, and the 
statements of some catalogs sound better than the facts 
strictly warrant. It will be best for the candidate to con- 
sult with the candidate secretary of his Board as to the 
choice of an institution. 

A full seminary course is recommended for educational 
missionaries by only a small minority of our correspondents. 
The variance of opinion is partly to be accounted for by the 

1 On this whole subject note Vol. V of the Report of the World Missionary 
Conference of 1910, pp. 161-179, or the pamphlet, “The Linguistic Preparation of 
the Missionary Candidate.” 


41 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 

difference between the seminaries that are in mind. Some 
seminaries provide many electives which would be of value 
to the educational missionary and make it possible to con- 
centrate on these. Others require all students to follow a 
schedule of studies which prepares for the home pastorate, 
including Hebrew. More than one year in a seminary of 
the former type might be well worth while for those who have 
plenty of time: seminaries of the latter type should be 
avoided by educational candidates who can afford to go else- 
where. Some seminaries, however, whose regular course re- 
quires Hebrew permit missionary candidates to take special 
courses without it. A year of postgraduate work in a great 
university might yield far more in cultural values and general 
equipment for life than an extra year in the average theo- 
logical seminary. 

The amount of time to be spent at a theological seminary 
will depend on the previous training of the candidate, the 
supplementary work he expects to undertake, his age, and 
often on practical questions, such as self-support, as well as 
upon the character of the institution. The ideal for an edu- 
cational missionary is a broad culture which will enable him 
to grow and be of weight in the community and in the coun- 
cils of the mission, together with such a knowledge of re- 
ligious subjects as may help him to make real contributions to 
the growth of the native church. Unless he teaches in a theo- 
logical seminary or Bible school on the field he need not be 
a specialist in theology, but he will have far greater re- 
sponsibility in this direction than teachers in this country. 
The more distinctively missionary and Biblical training he 
can get in addition to a thorough educational preparation the 
better. The equivalent of a year in Biblical training, cover- 
ing the subjects mentioned above, should be the minimum. 
Candidates desiring a really efficient educational equipment 
will usually be unable to spend more time than this. 

Mr. Fletcher S. Brockman made the following statement 
in 1910 about thorough preparation: 

42 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


“No person with a partial or superficial education will be able to 
command the full respect of the Chinese. Heretofore the Chinese have 
had poor facilities for passing judgment upon a man’s attainments in 
western learning. Such will not long be the case. Whatever prepar- 
ation for missionaries may mean, it must not mean in the case of China 
less, but rather more, than would be necessary for work at home.’’^ 

The importance of varied practical experience also must 
not be forgotten. The reason why a number of corre- 
spondents recommend Bible or missionary training schools 
instead of theological seminaries is probably on account of 
the more practical nature of the courses. It would seem wise 
for volunteers to secure the best academic training possible, 
but in addition to engage in practical forms of Christian 
work similar to those that will be met on the field. The time 
element enters here, and some missionaries would urge can- 
didates to reach the field as early as possible after graduating 
from college; others advise first to demonstrate efficiency in 
practical work at home. 

(c) Educational Training . — It must be admitted that 
mission Boards have been less exacting in their demands 
for special training in the case of educational than in that of 
medical missionaries. There are reasons for this. In the 
first place, inefficiency in medical work demonstrates itself 
quickly and mercilessly while inefficiency in education does 
not. The hospital patient obviously gets well or dies. The 
school pupil under poor teaching stays on, learning almost 
nothing, but no one can tell this from his appearance. Learn- 
ing is supposed to be a tedious process, anyway, the results 
of which are not apparent except to those who conduct exam- 
inations. In the second place, it is generally felt that educa- 
tional science is in a more experimental stage than medical 
science is. The word pedagogy arouses suspicion in the minds 
of some. Teachers who are deficient in personality often try 
to conceal the fact by glibness in technical rules, and this 
has brought discredit on the whole subject. The practical 

^ Report of Commission V, W'orld Missionary Conference, pp. 270-1. 

43 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


value of educational training is more or less doubted. In 
the third place, the aims of secular education are felt to be 
somewhat different from those of the missionary school, so 
that absorption in them may make a man a less efficient mis- 
sionary. 

Finally and most important, educational training received 
at home has been in most cases too superficial or too special- 
ized. The medical student, with four to six years of prepara- 
tion in school and hospital, has an opportunity to lay a foun- 
dation comparatively much broader and deeper. He has 
covered the main essentials, has had a view of relationships, 
and has prepared the way either to do general work or to 
take any one of several special subjects. The theological stu- 
dent has spent three years on a course which furnishes a 
broad basis, and which to-day is tending to offer some more 
specific preparation for the missionary. The average teacher, 
as testified by our correspondence, has had by no means the 
equivalent of such preparation. Many missionaries occupy- 
ing the most important educational positions on the field have 
never had any special training for their work. They are 
graduates of colleges and theological seminaries, but even 
there received no specific work in educational principles. 
They may have done a little teaching, in most cases to pay 
expenses rather than to acquire experience. Such work 
may be of great value, but it may also be very one-sided. 
Among men missionaries, those who have had even a full 
year’s work in the principles of education and another year 
of practice under favorable conditions, are in the very small 
minority. A large proportion of women missionaries have 
had some experience in teaching, but neither this nor any 
normal training they may have received has prepared them 
to deal with the larger educational questions. Considering 
the circumstances, educational missionaries have done a 
splendid work, though it has been fortunate that in many 
cases they have had little competition. The more discerning 


44 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


among them, however, recognize how superficial their gen- 
eral preparation has been, and how much more will be needed 
to meet the problems that are arising. 

When educational training has been at all thorough in the 
past it has usually been rather narrowly specialized. A 
teacher has been expert in kindergarten or elementary work, 
or in certain subjects of the secondary school or college, but 
has known nothing of any other field or of the larger prob- 
lems of education. The medical missionary, on the other 
hand, prepares along all lines — medicine, surgery, tropical 
diseases, etc. — with the expectation of dealing with every 
case that presents itself. If training for teachers were 
equally broad, it would be more welcome than it is. 

All this is not an argument against educational training, 
but merely a warning against that which is not both broad 
and thorough. There are many positive reasons to the same 
point. All the special difficulties mentioned on pages 19-24 
of this pamphlet make thoroughness of training more neces- 
sary. The handicap of the use of a foreign language by 
either teacher or students, the demand for adaptation to new 
mental conditions and to social needs unlike those of 
America, the frequent lack as to school staff, equipment, ad- 
equate textbooks or well-trained native teachers, the ruts 
which many missionary schools have gotten into, the lack 
of expert supervision, the responsibility for missionary as 
well as intellectual results, the increasing stress of govern- 
ment competition, the need of amalgamating elements of 
civilizations foreign to each other — all these things plainly 
demand preparation that shall be especially efficient. Other 
reasons could easily be added. In this country the teacher 
has the assistance of the home, the church, public spirit, and 
of other educational agencies, such as literature, public ad- 
dresses, exhibitions, etc., in large measure. On the foreign 
field the school must generally contribute a far larger percent- 
age of the total uplifting forces in the lives of young people. 


45 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


Here the inefficient teacher tends to be eliminated; there he 
tends to be copied by those who know no better models. Here 
the large problems and broad surveys of education are as- 
signed to leaders with long experience. There problems that 
are more perplexing and the correlation of whole systems 
must frequently be grappled by comparative newcomers. No 
one less than the educational missionary can afford to waste 
time through ignorance, no one can less afford to be inefficient, 
no one can less afford to be without all the real resources that 
educational science has to offer. The obvious dangers have 
already been mentioned of specialization in too narrow a de- 
partment of education and of becoming too professional in 
spirit, but the opposite danger is very great, of failing to 
specialize sufficiently to meet the needs of the present 
situation. 

Prof. E. P. Cubberley, in his authoritative book on Public 
School Administration (pp. 133 ff.), outlines the following 
training as desirable for a superintendent of schools in this 
country. A broad college course as the basis, with electives 
in educational theory, followed by a year of postgraduate 
work in the more advanced problems of education ; then five 
or six years as a teacher and a principal of schools, during 
which time the candidate should fully fit himself for his pro- 
fession by varied observation, careful reading and study, and 
by contact with all available broadening influences. At the 
end of this time some may find it practicable to complete a 
Ph.D. in education. 

Few missionaries may have opportunities for training as 
thorough as this, but the arrangement of work is suggestive. 
First, some general introduction to the study of education 
is recommended, together with enough theory to gain insight 
into the practical problems. Prof. Cubberley probably would 
not object to inserting a year of practical experience before 
the earlier post-graduate year. In any event, he calls for 
prolonged practical work, accompanied by study before the 


46 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


Ph.D. thesis. In attempting to scale down this preparation 
we might suggest, first, enough of theory to furnish general 
ideas and ideals for practice. Without this, teaching may be 
unnecessarily crude. This theory might be represented by 
good college courses in education, summer school work, a 
year at a teachers’ college, or even by hard reading. Any 
opportunities for observation, practice teaching, or discus- 
sion of principles that may be offered should be welcomed. 
Next should come a period of practical experience, which 
should be chosen for its educative value. Teaching English 
or modern history under a progressive principal in a medium- 
sized high school, with well-developed extra-curriculum ac- 
tivities, would be a desirable type of work ; teaching Latin in 
a college preparatory school, with strict rules, would be in 
general an undesirable type. The final year of theory after 
this will be appreciated much more than before practice. 
The amount of study and teaching will vary in different 
cases, and circumstances may render it necessary to take 
all the practice first or last. But where choice is possible, 
the arrangement of at least a brief study of principles first, 
not less than a year of practice next, and a full year of 
theory last, is recommended, with observation, reading, and 
discussion at all stages. 

Where more advanced work is practicable, it is suggested 
that Ph.D. degrees be taken before sailing, in any subjects 
to be taught on the field, but that they may sometimes best 
be deferred until the first furlough. Others will do best to 
learn the technique of some sort of practical research work 
in this country and after acquiring the language, to gather 
material for a thesis on some subject that needs investigation 
by exact modern methods. Whether a doctor’s degree is 
necessary at all is another question, but if it is taken it will 
surely be most useful in connection with some missionary 
educational problem which the foreign missionary has neither 
time nor special training to pursue. Material on such sub- 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


jects can be collected only with great difficulty from the home 
base and hardly with effectiveness on the field, unless there 
has been special training in research methods. On the first 
furlough, which may then need extension, the thesis may be 
put into shape. 

In particular, a word should be said to the college student 
and graduate. The tendency in many of our colleges and 
universities has been to consider almost exclusively the 
claims of subject-matter rather than those of methods of in- 
struction — the what of education rather than the how. Pro- 
fessors are appointed on account of their learning and emi- 
nence in research work, with little regard to their ability as 
teachers. Normal schools and teacher training colleges are 
looked down upon as narrow in their aims and culture, and 
the whole science of education falls under the same condem- 
nation. The average college professor or student is preju- 
diced simply because he imagines that education is nothing 
more than pedagogy, which he considers to be a set of arti- 
ficial teaching devices. He needs to realize that because 
education has come to be recognized by nations as the most 
important agency of social evolution, the science of educa- 
tion has become one of the broadest, most vital, and most 
cultural subjects that a man can study. 

VII. Important Courses in Education 

Here again some warnings are necessary. The principal 
thing is not how many courses a candidate has taken, nor 
how long he has studied, but what he has to show for it. 
There is no assurance that a candidate who announces that 
he has “had” educational psychology, for instance, has really 
gotten anything that will be of much use to him on the field. 
Educational courses, like those in all other subjects, some- 
times fail to secure to the student all that their titles imply. 
They are usually taught with American conditions in view, 
by those who have no knowledge of missionary problems. 


48 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 

They often contain more or less dead wood and fail to carry 
the student to the point of mastery of the subject. Of them- 
selves they are not achievements, but only helps and stimu- 
lants to further learning. 

1. The Most Useful Courses. 

(a) Introduction to Education . — The most useful intro- 
ductory course for beginners is one which sets forth in a 
concrete way the practical problems of the teacher within 
and outside the classroom, with just enough of background 
to furnish some standards of higher values. It should be 
organized psychologically from the standpoint of the learner 
rather than logically from the standpoint of the educational 
theorist, and should be illustrated by observation, teaching, 
and administrative methods. 

(b) The Principles of T e aching in Their Practical Appli- 
cation . — Next in order of concreteness comes the teaching of 
the particular subject more in detail. This is desirable be- 
fore undertaking practice, in order to enlarge ideas of meth- 
od. Later, more extended work along this line may be ad- 
visable, first, because missionaries may have to teach several 
branches in case of an emergency and, second, in order that 
they may be qualified to train native teachers. This last is 
very important. Missionaries should be able to analyze the 
principles of teaching various subjects, to illustrate effective 
methods, and to supervise. They should take the lead in 
conducting teachers’ institutes, and be able to assist in work- 
ing out problems of teaching new subjects, such as the Chi- 
nese language. Those qualified to teach in normal schools 
are especially needed. Within the next few years the num- 
ber of native Christian teachers must be greatly multiplied, 
and this may be done only by those who have, added to special 
gifts, the best training available. 

(c) School Administration . — This is more important for 
most missionaries than preparation for classroom work. It 
involves, not only such matters as bookkeeping and finance, 

49 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


school building and sanitation, statistics and reports, but all 
that relates to the social life of the school — moral training, 
and making the school a social center and a service to the 
community. Many recent developments of the American 
public school in its care for social welfare are very suggestive 
for the mission field. There is need also for a few mission- 
aries with training to deal with the larger problems of ad- 
ministration, the correlation of the educational agencies in a 
whole region, and the promotion of efficiency of an entire 
school system. In order to make the most of very slender 
resources, there should be a more general study of the educa- 
tional surveys that have been made in this and other coun- 
tries, and there should be a few missionaries especially ac- 
quainted with the various types of tests and measures that 
have been devised in recent years and the statistical methods 
needed for their effective stud}^ Such leadership might ex- 
hibit needs wholly unsuspected, and prepare the way for a 
far more intelligent distribution of missionary educational 
effort. 

(d) The Philosophy of Education . — A course is needed 
to present education in the large, its scope, aims, broad prob- 
lems, and relationships to the development both of the indi- 
vidual and the race. Such material is sometimes given under 
the title of principles of education. There is danger lest we 
consider education to be only a study of well-established 
methods for conducting existing institutions, and thus fail 
to see it in perspective. 

(e) Educational Sociology . — This study of the relation 
of the school to society involves the adjustment of the school 
to social needs, and of the aims, curricula, and methods of 
each grade and type of school to its particular surroundings. 
In view of the place of the school in preparation for most 
efficient Christian participation in the various social institu- 
tions, this subject is absolutely fundamental. It is exceed- 
ingly important that the missionary should not copy blindly 

50 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


the schools of the West, but should understand how they 
ought to be modified to meet the needs of different fields. 
One of the most difficult and interesting problems of educa- 
tional missionary work is to construct the most useful 
curricula for various situations. For instance, the China 
National Conference, quoted above on page 5, says of educa- 
tional work for women, “We must increase it in quality and 
fit our graduates from colleges and training schools to in- 
vestigate social and industrial problems, to study religious 
questions, and in every way to be leaders of Chinese women 
in the regeneration of China.” 

(f ) Educational Psychology . — This study of the learning 
process involves the working of the human mind as affected 
by inheritance and environment, and its laws of organization 
and growth. From such a study may be expected a better 
appreciation of how the pupil acquires his habitual modes of 
thought, of how he adds to his store of knowledge, and of 
the means necessary to the development of character. Those 
who expect to deal with children will specialize in child 
study. 

(g) Comparative Education . — Many leading educators 
agree that the traditional courses in the history of education 
have been greatly overdone. They were presented too early 
and often contained little more than a background of names, 
dates, and principal facts. The history of education is a 
valuable study when presented to mature students in a ma- 
ture way, bringing out clearly the forces operating in edu- 
cational evolution, and especially contrasting developments 
in different countries and in different stages of growth. This 
will help students to realize how dependent some forms of 
educational organization are on mere historical accidents, 
and in particular how little we are justified in setting up the 
present system of American education as a norm for other 
countries. The biographies of great Christian and mission- 
ary educators will be found helpful. 


51 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


(h) Physical and Social Education . — Much has been 
done in the way of organized play, games, scouting, and 
directed social activities. While these should not be intro- 
duced without knowledge of local conditions, they represent 
a great need in the training of Oriental youth. 

(i) Kindergarten Methods . — The China National Con- 
ference declared “There is an unlimited field for the Chris- 
tian kindergarten.” For this and for the development of a 
scientific primary curriculum there is need of sound leader- 
ship. 

(j) Treatment of Defectives . — This class is generally 
neglected in the non-Christian world. Christian missions 
should set an example in caring for them. 

Not all these subjects may be studied by all educational 
missionaries, but the example of the medical missionary 
would suggest that the training must be broad and thorough, 
if an adequate type of Christian education is to be set up on 
the field. It is more important to have missionaries who see 
education as a whole, who can locate the weak points in our 
systems and strengthen them, than those who are expert in 
only a single department. 

2. The Place and Method of Study. 

The best places for this training are teachers’ colleges, 
pedagogical departments of strong universities, and first- 
class normal schools. Some institutions which advertise all 
or most of these subjects may present them in an inadequate 
way. In general, it is better to inquire about courses and to 
elect only those which have competent instructors than to 
depend upon the description of catalogs. Some courses can 
be taken more economically by individual reading. 

Inspection of good teaching in various grades and types 
of schools is also very suggestive. Some schools should be 
visited which share the difficulties of the foreign field as to 
ungraded classes, foreign lx)rn children, poor home life, etc. 

52 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


Hampton Institute is well worth a visit by those who expect 
to face the practical problems of the instruction of an un- 
. developed people. There should be conversation with those 
who have had experience along any of the lines recommended 
for study, and reading not required by the course. Books on 
educational missionaries and their varied service should be 
read. For suggestions refer to the bibliography, pp. 57, 58. 
The eager student will also note in the current missionary 
magazines references to the eminent educators of today. 

Most educational missionaries recommend that at least a 
year should be spent in the study of educational theory. 
This should be a minimum. In medicine the Boards gener- 
ally recommend a four years’ course, and hospital practice 
in addition. A number of educational missionaries should 
spend as much time in their preparation — one year’s study 
of theology and three of education, together with actual ex- 
perience in teaching. Such persons, given the right spirit 
and ability, would be equipped to meet scientifically the more 
difficult educational problems on the field. 

Missionaries going to the Far East would be greatly prof- 
ited by a visit to the Philippines on their way out, to study 
the work of the United States government in education. 

The candidate should not be discouraged by all these sug- 
gestions. While they mention much more than is usually 
expected of educational missionaries, they represent an ideal 
which is actually necessary and which for some is truly 
practicable. Few educational missionaries in the past have 
had such training and yet many of them have been highly 
successful. The best of them would probably admit that 
with better preparation they would have achieved more, or 
at least have come earlier into their full strength. 

3. Educational Training on the Field. 

The training of the educational missionary is by no means 
complete when he sails for the field. Three very important 


53 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


lines of study remain to be taken up later. The first is the 
study of the language, which is being increasingly done in 
union language schools. Even if the missionary instructs in 
English he should by no means omit to study the vernacular. 
The second is the study of the whole work of the mission, 
and the third, which can be taken at the same time, is the 
study of the conditions from which the students come and 
to which they go. Many correspondents recommend that 
all educational missionaries should serve a term of evangel- 
istic work on the field before beginning to teach. From the 
educational standpoint the advice is most sound. It would 
seem absurd to attempt to teach without knowing as much 
as possible of the life of the students and of the whole enter- 
prise to which the school is expected to contribute. In any 
event, missionary teachers should take every opportunity to 
visit the homes of their pupils and to make the most of vaca- 
tions in traveling about the country. 

They should look forward to furloughs as a time to sup- 
plement their study after taking the necessary rest. They 
will then realize far better what they need most and will 
appreciate what they study as would have been impossible 
before. Some correspondents would even recommend post- 
poning part of the preparation until the first furlough, on the 
ground that it can then be made so much more intelligently. 
Most of these suggest a short first term on the field in order 
to get a grip on the language and an acquaintance with the 
needs of the work. But the great majority of missionaries 
advise that nothing in the way of preparation be deliberately 
postponed, since one can never know too much ; but that the 
furlough be still used to supplement needs that could not be 
foreseen. 

Present arrangements for furloughs by mission Boards 
often present difficulties to the educational missionary who 
wishes to study. The time is sometimes too short for the 
training that is really needed, and the furlough sometimes 

54 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


falls at a season which permits only a fragmentary course. 
A few Boards make small grants to assist missionaries on 
furlough in meeting the expenses of study, but these are often 
quite inadequate, especially when there are no educational 
facilities near at hand. Those who most sorely need pro- 
fessional training are often urged by the Boards to spend 
time instead in financial campaigns or on speaking tours. The 
needs of health recuperation may also interfere with study. 
With all these things in view, the deliberate postponement of 
study until the first furlough means to take a great risk. In 
any event, until Boards realize more fully the importance of 
supplementary educational training during furlough, mis- 
sionaries should plan in advance with great care, so as to 
make the most of their stay in the homeland. The educa- 
tional missionary must always be a student and should never 
cease to grow, both in knowledge and in character. 


55 


A Brief List of Books of Unusual Value for the 
Educational Missionary 


A. Books of General Educational Importance 

1. Edinburgh World Missionary Conference, Report of Commission HI. 

Education in Relation to the Christianization of National Life. Pp. xx, 
471. New York, Revell, 1910. 

This is a very thorough discussion of the needs of educational work in general and 
in the various fields in particular. It should be carefully studied by every candidate 
for educational work. 

2. . Report of Commission V. The Training of Teachers. Pp. x, 341. 

New York, Revell, 1910. ' 

This report treats of the training of missionaries and has special sections on the needs 
of educational missionaries. 

3. . Report of Commission II. The Church in the Mission Field. Pp. 

XX, 380. New York, Revell, 1910. 

An important discussion of the conditions under which the missionary must do his work. 

4. The Continuation Committee Conferences in Asia, 1912-1913. The Findings, 

arranged by topics, with general and chapter introductions by H. P. 
Beach. Pp. 430. New York, Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign 
Missions, 1913. 

These conferences made many important recommendations on the subject of educational 
work and the training of missionaries which are worthy of study in aetail. 

5. Speer, R. E. Christianity and the Nations. Pp. 399. New York, Revell, 

1910. (Duff Lectures for 1910.) 

A careful discussion of many lines of missionary policy, with many quotations. 

6. Lucas, B. The Empire of Christ, being a Study of the Missionary Enter- 

prise in the Light of Modern Religious Thought. Pp. vii, 151. London, 
Macmillan, 1909. 

An argument for the regeneration of society as opposed to the winning of individuals. 
Brilliant and suggestive. 

7. Barton, James L. Educational Missions. Pp. 271. New York, Student 

Volunteer Movement, 1913. 

A general survey of the achievements and problems of missionary education on the 
foreign field. 

B. Books Which Set Forth the Educational Problems of 
Different Mission Areas 

1. The China Mission Year Book. Shanghai, Christian Literature Society 

for China (Yearly). New York, Committee of Reference and Counsel, 
25 Madison Avenue. 

An annual publication describing the exact status of the Christian missionary move- 
ment for the year preceding publication. It often contains valuable articles relating to 
Christian education. 

2. Kuo, P. W. The Chinese System of Public Education. Pp. 209. Teachers 

College, Columbia University, 1915. 

A doctor’s thesis describing the Chinese Government system of education from earliest 
times, with its modern reorganization under the Republic. 

56 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


3. Burton, M. E. The Education of Women in China. Pp. 268. New York, 

Revell. 1911. 

An excellent summary of the general and missionary education of women in China hy 
a careful observer. 

4. Lewis, Ida B. The Education of Girls in China. Pp. 92. Teachers 

College, Columbia University, 1919. 

A doctor’s thesis, presenting the results of an investigation of mission schools for girls 
in China. 

5. The Educational Review. Shanghai, China Christian Educational Associa- 

tion. (Quarterly.) New York, Committee of Reference and Counsel, 
25 Madison Avenue. 

Many veiy helpful articles for one who is to undertake educational work in China or 
the Far Fast. 

6. Sharp, H. Progress of Education in India, 1912-1917, two vols. Calcutta 

Supt. of Government Printing, India. 1919. 

The seventh and latest of the Quinquennial Reports which are indispensable for students 
of education in India. Annual reports are now being issued in addition. 

7. Sadler, M. E. Calcutta University Commission Report, 1917-1919, 13 vols. 

Calcutta Supt. of Government Printing, 1919. 

The first five volumes present a summary of the evidence and the recommendations of 
the Commission on University Work in Bengal. A very stimulating discussion for the 
student of education in India. 

8. Cowan, M. G. The Education of Women in India. Pp. 256. New York, 

Revell, 1912. 

Impressions of a thoughtful visitor. 

9. The Christian Movement in the Japanese Empire, including Korea and 

Formosa. Japan, Conference of- Federated Missions (Yearly). New 
York, Committee of Reference and Counsel, 25 Madison Avenue. 

Like the China Mission Year Book, this annual publication contains from time to time 
valuable articles on Christian education. 

10. Burton, M. E. The Education of Women in Japan. Pp. 268. New York, 

Revell, 1914. 

A worthy companion to Miss Burton’s book on the education of women in China. 

11. Kikuchi, Baron D. Japanese Education, Lectures delivered in the Uni- 

versity of London. Pp. xvi, 397. London, Murray, 1909. 

Lectures presenting an excellent sketch of Japanese education. 

12. Loram, C. T. The Education of the South African Native. Pp. 340. New 

York, Longmans, Green, 1917. 

The work of an able government inspector, referring largely to conditions in mission- 
ary schools. 

13. Latin American Congress, 1916. Report on Education in Vol. I of the 

Official Report. New York, Missionary Education Movement, 1917. 

A clear setting forth of educational conditions in Latin America. 

14. Fraser, A. G., Fleming, D. J., and others. Village Education in India; the 

Report of a Commission of Inquiry. London and New York, Oxford 
University Press, 1920. 

A report of very great value, discussing the type of education needed for village schools. 
Very suggestive for all countries. 


C Bicxiraphies of Noteworthy Educational Missionaries 

1. Smith, G. Life of Alexander Duff. Two vols. in one. Pp. 553. New 
York, Armstrong, 1879. 

A bulky book, parts of which may well be skimmed, but of great importance for the 
history of educational missions. 


57 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


2. Hamlin, C. My Life and Times. 5th ed. Pp. 538. Boston, Pilgrim 

Press, 1893. 

The life of another vigorous and original personality who was the first president of 
Robert College in Constantinople. 

3. Washburn, G. Fifty Years in Constantinople and Recollections of Robert 

College. Pp. xxxi, 317. Boston, Houghton, 1909. 

A history of the founding and development of Robert College. 

4. Griffis, W. E. Verbeck of Japan; a Citizen of No Country; a Life Story 

of Foundation Work inaugurated by Guido Fridolin Verbeck. Pp. 376. 
New York, Revell, 1900. 

The only available life of a missionary who did much to lay the foundation of Japanese 
education. 

5. Hardy, A. S. Life and Letters of Joseph Hardy Neesima. Pp. vi, 350. 

Boston, Houghton, 1891. 

A life of the leading Japanese Christian educator. 

6. Wells, J. The Life of James Stewart. 2d. ed. Pp. xi, 419. London, 

Hodder, 1909. 

A life of the man who founded the leading missionary industrial institution of Africa. 

7. Talbot, E. A. Samuel Chapman Armstrong. Pp. vi, 301. New York, 

Doubleday, 1904. 

General Armstrong was a man of strong personality, and has contributed very greatly, 
through Hampton Institute, to the progress of education. 

8. Washington, B. T. Up From Slavery, an Autobiography. Pp. xxiii, 330. 

New York, Missionary Education Movement, 1901. 

The best known graduate of Hampton has also made a real contribution to our national 
approach to the problem of the proper education of backward peoples. 

9. Tyndale-Biscoe, C. E. Character Building in Kashmir. Pamphlet. Lon- 

don, Church Missionary Society, undated. 

A very striking example of results in character building obtained by unconventional 
methods. 


D. Books on the Principles and Methods of Education 


The first sixteen books are especially recommended for beginners : 

1. McMurry, F. M. How to Study and Teaching How to Study. Pp. viii, 324. 

Boston, Houghton, 1909. 

Contains many practical suggestions for the teacher. Especially valuable for the be- 
ginner. 

2. Thorndike, E. L. Education, a First Book. Pp. ix, 292. New York, 

Macmillan, 1912. 

An introduction to educational principles, with emphasis on the psychological side. 

3. Miller, I. E. Education for the Needs of Life. Pp. 353. New York, 

Macmillan, 1917. 

An excellent su mm ary of the modern functional viewpoint in education. 

4. Cubberley, E. P. Chan^ng Conceptions in Education. Pp. ix, 70. Boston, 

Houghton, 1909. (Riverside Educational Monographs.) 

A good brief sketch of the development of some of the modern ideals of education. 

5. Dewey, J. and E. Schools of Tomorrow. Pp. 316. New York, Dutton, 

1915. 

An account of several schools in America which are illustrating principles of initiative 
and adaptation to special needs. 

6. Dewey, E. New Schools for Old. Pp. 337. New York, Dutton, 1919. 

The story of a wonderfully interesting transformation of a run-down rural school. 

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PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


7. Came}', M. Country Life and the Country School; a Study of the Agencies 

of Rural Progress and of the Social Relationship of the School to the 
Country Community. Pp. xxii, 405. Chicago, Row, 1912. 

Shows what an uplifting influence the school may become in a rural community. 

8. Kendall, C. N., and Mirick, G. A. How to Teach the Fundamental Sub- 

jects. Pp. xii, 392. Boston, Houghton, 1915. 

Presents practical suggestions on teaching the principal subjects of the elementary school. 

9. Sears, J. B. Classroom Organization and Control. Pp. 300. Boston, 

Houghton, 1918. 

A manual for the teacher beginning work in an elementary school. 

10. Bennett, H. E. School Efficiency. Pp. 374. New York, Ginn, 1917. 

This book discusses the administrative problems of the teacher and principal in a school 
of average size. 

11. Reeder, R. R. How Two Hundred Children Live and Learn. 3d. ed. 

Pp. 247. Hastings-on-Hudson, N. Y., 1914. 

Most sane and wholesome description of how to bring up children in an institution. 
Excellent for boarding school work. 

12. Lewis, W. D. Democracy’s High School. Pp. 130. New York, Houghton, 

1914. 

One of the best brief introductions to the progressive viewpoint in secondary education. 

13. James, W. Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some 

of Life’s Ideals. Pp. xi, 301. New York, Holt, 1909. 

An old book, but one much quoted for its suggestions on mental development and 
character formation. 

14. Davis, J. B. Vocational and Moral Guidance. Pp. 303. New York, Ginn, 

1914. 

Suggestions for helping young people choose their life occupations through work in 
English. 

15. Weigle, L. A., Winchester, R. S., & Athearn, W. S. Pilgrim Training 

Course, First Year. Pp. 344. Boston, Pilgrim Press, 1917. 

One of our best brief training courses for Sunday School teachers. A similar advanced 
course is now available. 

16. Mumford, E. R. The Dawn of Character. Pp. 210. New York, Long- 

mans, 1910. 

An attractively written, non-technical book on social study and training for the parent 
and teacher. 

17. Dewey, J. The School and Society. Pp. xv, 164. 2d. ed. Chicago, Uni- 

versity of Chicago Press, 1915. 

Though very unpretentious in form, this has been called the most influential book on 
education written by an American. It lays down principles for the elementary curricu- 
lum. 

18. . Democracy and Education ; an Introduction to the Philosophy of 

Education. Pp. xii, 434. New York, Macmillan, 1916. 

The most complete statement of Dr. Dewey’s philosophy of education, which has had 
immense influence on national leaders. Not easy reading, but worth careful study. 

19. Bobbitt, F. The Curriculum. Pp. 295. New York, Houghton, 1918. 

A broad discussion of the principles of curriculum construction. 

20. Blow, S., Hill, P., & Harrison, E. The Kinder^rten ; Reports of the 

Committee of Nineteen on the Theory and Practice of the fcndergarten. 
Pp. xvi, 301. New York, Houghton, 1913. 

The discussion of kindergarten principles by a strict Froebelian and a representative of 
the progressive school. 

21. Norsworthy, N., & Whitley, N. T. The Psychology of Qiildhood. Pp. 375. 

New York, Macmillan, 1918. 

A textbook for normal schools, 


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PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


22. Strayer, G. D., & Norsworthy, N. How to Teach. Pp. 397. New York, 

Macmillan, 1917. 

This book presents the psychology most needed by the teacher. 

23. Inglis, A. Principles of Secondary Education. Pp. 741. New York, 

Houghton, 1918. 

On the whole the best general discussion of the secondary school. 

24. Snedden, D. Problems of Secondary Education. Pp. 333. New York, 

Houghton, 1917. 

Some very good and suggestive comments on secondary education. 

25. Russell, W. F. Economy in Secondary Education. Pp. viii, 74. Boston, 

Houghton, 1916. 

The comparison of American with European secondary education, with helpful sugges- 
tions for the improvement of the former. 

26. Parker, S. C. Methods of Teaching in High Schools. Pp. xxv, 529. New 

York, Ginn, revised edit., 1920. 

The main principles of teaching are applied in turn to different subjects of the secondary 
school. 

27. Hall-Quest, A. L. Supervised Study; a discussion of the Study Lesson 

in High School. Pp. xvii, 433. New York, Macmillan, 1916. 

A somewhat fragmentary compilation of suggestions on matters of fundamental impor- 
tance for every teacher. 

28. Thorndike, E. L. Educational Psychology; a Briefer Course. Pp. 442. 

New York, Macmillan, 1912. 

Presents the results of careful psychological studies on instinct, learning, fatigue, and 
individual differences in their educational applications. 

29. Dewey, J. How We Think. Pp. vi, 224. Boston, Heath, 1910. 

A very careful analysis of thought processes with application to education. 

30. Monroe, W. S., De Voss, J. C., & Kelly, F. J. Educational Tests and 

Measurements. Pp. 309. New York, Houghton, 1917. 

Perhaps the best general introduction to this subject, with brief descriptions. 

31. Terman, L. M. The Intelligence of School Children. Pp. 317. New York, 

Houghton, 1919. 

A discussion of results obtained by the Stanford Revision of the Binet intelligence tests. 

32. Cubberley, E. P. Public School Administration. Pp. 479. New York, 

Houghton, 1916. 

A broad discussion of principles based on American conditions. 

33. , and others. The Portland Survey; a textbook on City School Ad- 

ministration based on a Concrete Study. Pp. xiv, 441. Yonkers, N. Y., 
World Book Co., 1915. 

A report on one of the numerous surveys of school systems that have recently been 
made in the United States. 

34. Ayres, L. P.. and others. The Cleveland Educational Survey. 25 small 

volumes. New York, Survey Committee of the Russell Sage Foundation, 
1916. 

Some of these volumes are of very great interest and can be purchased separately. 

35. Ward, E. F. The Social Center. Pp. x, 359. New York, Appleton, 1913. 

Suggests many lines along which the school may become a social force in the com- 
munity. 

36. Hoag, E. B., & Terman, L. M. Health Work in the Schools. Pp. xiii, 321. 

New York, Houghton, 1914. 

An excellent summary of what schools should undertake in the way of practical hy- 
giene. 

37. Brewer, J. N. The Vocational Guidance Movement. Pp. 333. Macmillan, 

1918. 

^ very practical discussion of the possibilities and limitations of vocational guidance. 

60 


PREPARATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 


38. Monroe, P. A Textbook in the History of Education. Pp. xxiii, 772. 
New York, Macmillan, 1911. 

On the whole the most satisfactory history of education. 

39. Graves, F. P. A Student’s History of Education. Pp. xxv, 3-453. New 

York, Macmillan, 1915. 

Briefer than Monroe and easier to read. More suitable for beginners. 

40. Cubberley, E. P. Public Education in the United States. Pp. 517. New 

York, Houghton, 1919. 

The most satisfactory history of education in the United States. 

41. Coe, G. A. A Social Theory of Religious Education. Pp. 361. New York, 

Scribner’s, 1917. 

The most consistent attempt yet made to work out a thoroughly social theory of religious 
education for both home and church. 

42. Sharp, F. C. Education for Character. Pp. 453. Indianapolis, Bobbs, 

Merrill, 1917. 

Discusses both indirect and direct moral instruction, mainly the latter. 

43. Snedden, David. Vocational Education. Pp. 587. New York, Macmillan, 

1920. 

A stimulating discussion of the larger problems involved in the organization of voca- 
tional education. 

44. Stimson, R. W. Vocational Agricultural Education. Pp. 468. New York, 

Macmillan, 1919. 

Treats especially methods of project work on home farms. 

45. Kilpatrick, W. H. The Project Method. New York, Teachers College, 

Columbia University. 30c. 

Reprint of an article in the Teacher’s College Record giving a very acute appraisal 
of the project method in education. 

46. Bonser, F. G. The Elementary School Curriculum. New York, Macmillan, 

1920. 

A very practical volume, discussing the aims of education, the best methods of ele- 
mentary instruction, and a very suggestive curriculum based on the project method. 

47. Briggs, T. H. The Junior High School. New York, Houghton Mifflin Co., 

1920. 

The most complete discussion available of this important subject. 

48. Klapper, Paul. College Teaching. Yonkers, N. Y., World Book Company, 

1920. 

A new type of book, discussing methods of teaching college subjects. 

49- Cubberley, E. P. The History of Education. New York, Houghton 
Mifflin Co., 1920. 

The most notable history of education that has been written since Monroe’s well- 
known work appeared. 

50. Strong, E. K. Introductory Psychology for Teachers. Baltimore, Warwick 
& York, 1920. 

A rather novel type of laboratory manual for educational psychology. 


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